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.

Journalists Fiddle While Benghazi Burns

It would be a disgrace to journalism in Connecticut if questions concerning the murder of a U.S. ambassador attached to the consulate in Benghazi were not put to all the members of Connecticut’s congressional delegation, preferably before Connecticut voters march to the polls to decide who among the candidates for Congress this year are best fitted to represent them.

Among candidates who may find themselves in Congress after November has come and gone are Representatives John Larson and Rosa DeLauro, both of whom occupy safe districts that, so it would seem, likely will not fall to Republicans. Other Congressional seats are more competitive. On the Democratic side in the U.S. House, incumbent U.S. Representatives Joe Courtney in the 2^nd District and Jim Himes in the 4^th District are defending their seats against Republicans Paul Formica and Steve Obsitnik. The 5^th District race, an open seat, pits Democrat Elizabeth Esty against Republican Andrew Roraback and could go either way. In the U.S. Senate race, current Democratic U.S. Representative Chris Murphy has a slight edge over Republican Linda McMahon.

The attack on the consulate in Libya has been a tar baby for President Barrack Obama, largely because the president and members of his administration took the view immediately following attacks by terrorists associated with al-Qaida in the African Maghreb that the murderous assault on U.S. Ambassador Ted Stevens and his much reduced band of security defenders sprang from a spontaneous protest against an amateurish film trailer defaming the prophet Mohammed. Within a short time of the assault, it became clear there was no protest near the consulate during an attack that lasted several hours. The security force protecting the consulate had earlier been reduced after assaults on the British ambassador.An earlier attack destroyed part of perimeter wall surrounding the consulate, and thus far no one in the Obama administration has sufficiently accounted for the reduction in security staff prior to 9/11, a date often exploited by al-Qaida terrorists.

Had Sherlock Holmes been on the scene, he would have reminded Dr. Watson, somewhat curtly, that the absence of a protest preceding the terrorist attack would strongly suggest that the ensuing mayhem could not have arisen spontaneously from a film that had enraged non-existent protesters. Elementary, my dear Watson.

In addition, the assault on the embassy appeared to be a well-coordinated attack on the ambassador and other brave military operatives two of whom, disregarding repeated orders from the CIA to “stand down,” rushed to the consulate from the annex in an attempt to extract Ambassador Stevens and ferry him to the annex where both, overcome by superior force, died.

The death of Navy Seal Tyrone Woods is morally nettlesome: Involved in two shootouts with terrorists at the consulate and the annex, Mr. Woods expired on the annex rooftop where he lay mortally injured, having repeatedly called for help that never materialized. Though the White House might have ordered an extraction of the ambassador-- help during the long ordealcould have been dispatched in a few hours – that order remained stillborn.

The attack on the consulate and the annex a mile distant was captured by two drones circling overhead, an evidentiary record sent in real time to Langley Air Force Base and members of the Obama administration. In view of persistent misrepresentations made by Obama officials who implausibly claimed that the murders of Ambassador Stevens others were connected with a film supposed to have sparked the assault, the drone record is a must-see.

Yet, if any journalist in Connecticut has asked Mr. Murphy, who sits on the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, to intercede with the Obama administration and demand the release of the drones' real time record, his answer is not readily apparent from anything he has said in debates or on the campaign stump. The remaining members of Connecticut’s congressional delegation -- Mr. Larson, who serves on the Committee on Ways and Means, which controls tax writing, Mrs. DeLauro, who serves on the Committee on Appropriations, and Mr. Himes, who sits on the House Banking Committee, all positions or power and authority – have maintained a discreet and deadly silence as the Benghazi ordeal has progressed from political incompetence to what may be a cover-up of major proportions in an administration that early on had pledged itself to an extraordinary degree of transparency.

This suffocating silence rolling over the bodies of four Americans – every one a hero – stems either from inexcusable ignorance, mendacious incompetence or the overriding campaign concerns of the Obama administration. This winding shroud of silence smothering a cry of help never answered even now could be shattered by journalists in Connecticut and elsewhere who are not asleep at their keyboards.

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.’"

Blumenthal And The Gentle Art Of Prosecution

"Here we are 90 days later, and Dick Blumenthal has issued 64 press releases but still no answer on Susan Bysiewicz's intelligence files. Three months is more than enough time to find out whether Bysiewicz illegally used state resources for political purposes. … He's got 200 lawyers over there, and he can't get to the bottom of this very serious allegation?"

So said Republican Party Chairman Chris Healy concerning Attorney General Richard Blumenthal’s slow boil investigation of Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz.

When it was revealed that Bysiewicz may have lacked the requisite experience to run for Blumenthal’s position as attorney general, the attorney general punted the problem to the Superior Court Judge Michael Sheldon, who promised – and delivered -- an expedited decision.

The question concerning possible misuse of a data base assembled by Bysiewicz’s office arose at the same time. The problematic data base containing 36,000 names, the existence of which became known in February, included persons who had contacted the secretary of state’s office on matters of business. Appended to the names were notes that, some believe, would undoubtedly prove useful to Bysiewicz in her campaigns. The notorious list, for instance, included 2,500 people who in the past had been selected as Democratic nominating convention delegates. Bysiewicz’s campaign committee in 2009 had obtained a copy of the database through a legal Freedom of Information Act request.

"She worked on his [Blumenthal’s] campaign,” Healy pointed out. “They're fellow Democrats, fellow constitutional officers and fellow statewide office-seekers. He hasn't said anything about the progress of that investigation. Has she been interviewed? Have any files been examined? What's the timeline for action?"

Indicating the case involves possible potential violations of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act provisions as well as charges that Bysiewicz may have used her office to accommodate her campaign needs, an exasperated Healy said, “If it was a Republican secretary of the state, they'd be boiling a 50-gallon drum of oil right now."

Blumenthal promised a thorough, presumably non-expedited, investigation that very likely will run well beyond the upcoming Democratic nomination convention on May 12-22.

In the matter of timely investigations and prosecutions, Mr. Blumenthal is an artist of rare accomplishments. A recent Waterbury Republican American editorial noted that Blumenthal’s office had backlog of an astonishing 36,495 cases pending at the end of 2008-09, a 40 percent increase over 1995-96.

And, of course, one of the joys of the office is that the attorney general decides who he will investigate and when the subsequent prosecution will end.

Blumenthal is an old hand in selective prosecution.

In what Blumenthal described as a “virtually unprecedented” action, the attorney general and State Treasurer Denise Nappier sued investment firm Forstmann Little in Feb., 2002 for losing more than $125 million in state worker pension funds. What made the case unprecedented was that seven of Forstmann Little’s general partners – with one notable exception -- were separately named as individual defendants. The sloppy seven were thus put personally on the hook for any resulting liability for making lousy investments that tanked.

The missing exception, according to Joel Mowbray, writing in National Review at the time, was Erskine Bowles, “the multimillionaire former chief of staff for Bill Clinton and current Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate seat now held by the retiring Sen. Jesse Helms (R., N.C.)”

Blumenthal’s suit was well founded, since Connecticut had stipulated that it did not intend its investment to be involved in high risk ventures, but the exclusion of Bowles was highly irregular:

“Connecticut alleges a bait-and-switch: that it signed on for the old, stodgy strategy, but that it got the new, risky plan without its knowledge or permission. Connecticut's suit primarily charges that Forstmann Little and its partners violated the investment contract and significantly misrepresented the worth and type of investments made in XO and McLeod… Given his [Bowles'] status as a general partner during most of the relevant time covered by the Connecticut lawsuit — he arrived in January 1999, and departed in October 2001 — Bowles' exclusion from the list of named defendants is curious, to say the least. He joined Forstmann Little eight months before the McLeod investment, and was a partner for almost the entire XO disaster, exiting only one month before Connecticut's stake in XO was completely wiped out…”

“State treasurer Denise Nappier has said that Bowles was on the original list of defendants, but his name was dropped by the outside counsel working with her office because of a lack of direct involvement in wrongdoing. But Bowles clearly had more involvement in McLeod than the five partners who are named defendants, but did not sit on the telecom's board of directors. And named defendants Klinsky and Holmes were not even partners when the investments were made, yet Bowles was.

“His luck, of course, is pure politics. Neither Klinsky nor Holmes had the good sense to run for statewide office as Democrats this year. They have both been dragged into the lawsuit, despite having far less involvement in the ill-fated investments than Bowles. Who needs Lady Luck when you have fellow Democrats calling the shots?”

Unlike Caesars wife, the highly partisan Blumenthal is not, in matters of political opportunism, above suspicion.

Oddly, the selective prosecution in the Forstmann Little case was raised as a campaign issue in 2002 by then Republican Party candidate for attorney general Martha Dean, a Republican presently running for the same office but, as sometimes happens in campaigns, Blumenthal managed to survive the issue.

So did Erskine Bowles, appointed in 2010 to co-chair President Barack Obama's fiscal commission with Alan K. Simpson.

Democrats, especially in Connecticut, have a way of overcoming such calamities.