Category: Political Thought

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Let’s Change the Debate Formate

Watching the most recent debate between Bob Stefanowski and Ned Lamont the CTMirror reported that there were a “few zingers” but little substance. The audience, although frequently admonished, added to the casual atmosphere that we were attending an entertainment event rather than a political debate, by hooting, whistling, and applauding.

Let’s face it, debates are forums in which each candidate tried to get the best, as the CTMirror puts it, “zingers” and hammer home one point whether it is factual or impactful or not. Stefanowski’s mantra was “taxes” and the inevitability that Lamont, being a Democrat, would raise taxes. On the other hand, Lamont described how his opponent would rip the very textbooks from our children’s hands, take grandma’s life-saving medicine away, and resurrect the long-settled issue of pre-existing conditions. The only problem is that none of it is true. It is basically 90 minutes of what we common folk refer to as bullshit.

Who, “won” the debate? On my scorecard I had Steph by a “nose”. Not that his plan was any better, but he was more comfortable and more entertaining. WRT whose plan was better, neither man provided any useful information which would aid in a responsible voter’s evaluation.

As such, these debates fail to provide useful information, to the contrary, any information that they do provide is misleading or incorrect. In fact, that is a strategy that some pundits teach in debate preparation and which we saw both Stefanowski and Lamont employed.

To wit, if it is your question, you have two minutes. So, you answer the question and then end with a statement about your opponent that you know or should know is untrue. This forces the opponent to exhaust his/her rebuttal time to correct your statement. Check it yourself. (You can see Ned Lamont expertly wield this technique if you go to 37’00” of the debate replay on CT-N). It is done in every political debate.

In addition, as we saw from the 2016 primary and presidential debates. This format is subject to misuse and can be easily corrupted or exploited. We know that Donna Brazil and CNN shared questions with Hillary Clinton to the detriment of poor hapless Bernie Sanders, who still doesn’t know what hit him. Now, these two points should be enough for scrapping the whole idea. However, there is some value in having the opportunity of seeing and hearing the two candidates answering questions side by side,

So, with all that in mind. Here is my idea for a new debate format.

  • The debates are structured like Hoover Institute’s “Uncommon Knowledge” (check it out on YouTube) and issues are discussed in intimate detail with 2 or 3 interviewers and last 2-2½ hours each.
  • There may be two or three interviews focusing on biography and education, political values and why these are important, and specific plans and programs which they intend to implement. This will allow a deep dive into the candidate’s plan.
  • The interviews are done simultaneously, but separately, and without an audience.
  • The candidate’s writings, advertising, position papers, and resume should be examined in detail by the interviewers who are selected from the public with one left leaning and one right leaning. N.B. that the interviewers are citizens, people from business and industry and not pundits, not reporters, not editors. We want the interview to be as unbiased as possible, and for the questions to be substantive and informative, not “gotchas”.

Here is what I consider the clincher! The interviewers will ask the candidates to provide a metric by which we can evaluate success or failure for each of their initiatives. Something definite and objectively and accurately measurable. Lamont says that he will close the “achievement gap”. How then will that be measured and what is the goal? Steph is going to phase out the personal income tax which will reduce taxes and increase revenue. When and by how much?

The interviews should be edited very basically and uploaded for viewing on CT-N and YouTube as well as TV (Maybe the News12 or WTNH gets a first showing option to recoup some money).

What do you think? I believe that everybody will support except the candidates.

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We Need to Let Them Know That We Are Here

Someone asked me recently, “What is a Conservative?”

Not all Conservatives are Trump supporters. Out of the original Republican field, Trump, was, for most of us, our 17th choice. I don’t like some of the crudeness of the man but most of us felt we had no choice. Hillary said that she wanted to use, “force of law to change people’s deep-seeded religious beliefs.” Even if I were not a religious person, that frightened me to death. With that said, I do like most of what Trump has done. I didn’t like Barack Obama. I still believe that he was the worst president in my lifetime. I will admit that I voted for him in 2008. I liked his message of unity, of “can do it”-ness and of hope. I didn’t vote for him in 2012, and would have voted for Mickey Mouse, if he was running against him. He was a divider not a unifier, and race relations were much worse in 2016 than they were in 2008, or perhaps even 1965.  And worst of all, he overreached his powers, like no other president before him. For him to the federal government to ignore laws duly passed by congress because he didn’t agree with those laws, was equally as frightening as Hillary’s threat to religion. As a Vietnam Vet, I felt bad, about Obama’s apology tour. I didn’t think that we were responsible for the war in Vietnam and I don’t believe that we were the origin of the, “great evil that was done here (Hiroshima)”.

Yes, there are conservatives in the state of Connecticut. This is a fact of which you would never be aware if you just read the Hartford Courant or the Connecticut Post, or listened to NPR and the likes of Colin McEnroe. These people don’t know it, but they do not speak for much of Connecticut. McEnroe told and interviewer that conservatives are people who post comments and they are “reading at the 4th grade level in Mississippi, you can’t spell anything, your minds are full of hate”, etc. etc. I thought of what Hillary Clinton said about conservatives being “deplorable”, and “irredeemable”. I watched Michelle Wolf belittle and berate Sarah Sanders sitting ten feet away from her, calling her “fat” and a “liar” while a roomful of liberal elitists laugh as if it is the funniest thing they have ever heard, and then go home to write about how stupid, and mean and full of hate the conservatives (or just about anyone who disagrees with them) are. I hear Governor Malloy tell us that we need to give them more money because “its the right thing to do”.  In a nearby school district, boys are girls are forced to write about “White Privilege” and they ingrain in the white kids that they are “oppressors”, and the other kids that they are the “victims”. How can that help anyone? And then they call us “uninformed” voters.

Well, I am sick of it.

Colin McEnroe, Hartford Courant, Governor Malloy this is what a conservative is:

Unlike Liberal, Conservatives have an ability and a preference for “thinking for themselves”. As such, there are a lot of different types of conservatives. In general, we believe in independence and free though and freedom, in the absence of the bonds of a repressive and overreaching federal government. We believe that we have ceded far too much of our liberty to government.

Unlike the other parties, we do not have a litmus test for our participants and, as such, we have people with differing beliefs. But, here are some of the things that conservatives are not:

We are for limited government. We support the 16 or 18 roles of the federal government enumerated in the constitution and as the 9th and 10th Amendment (See graphic below) and reserves ALL other roles are reserved to the states. – That does not make us Nationalists or Populists

We believe that all men and women, “are created equal”, regardless of the race, color or creed and don’t believe that one race should be granted privileges that put them higher on a hierarchy of victimization while presenting all white men as oppressors – That does not make us Racists. Yet, you will read some elitists who would claim otherwise

We believe that a baby is a baby, 24 weeks after conception or 24 weeks after birth, but we don’t consider a woman who has had an abortion as a murderer – That does not make us Anti-Women.

We are not climate change deniers. We understand quite well that climate change has been going on for 4.6 billion years and it will continue to change regardless of what we do. We do believe that there is sufficient good science to make a level of skepticism about the most dire predictions are quite sound. This does not mean that we are anti-environment.

We believe that there are millions of fellow Americans who need and rely of help from the rest of us and we are perfectly willing to provide such assistance, but we don’t believe welfare should be a way of life, we need to provide opportunity and all the accouterments necessary to enable someone to take advantage of those opportunities rather than “making poverty more comfortable.” – This does not make us haters of the poor.

We believe that the law should apply to everyone, including Hillary Clinton, Rice, Power, Brennan, Comey, Clapper, Obama, Bill Clinton, Lynch, Lerner, Strzok, and ALL elected officials  – This doesn’t make us Haters.

Michelle Wolf had a series of jokes about abortion at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner, saying “don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.” Lisa Dunham said, I have not had an abortion but I wish I had.” Now, most of us think abortion is wrong but some say that, “Hey, I am against it but it needs to be safe, etc.” However, none of us make light, joke, or recommend such a difficult and sensitive topic –  This doesn’t make us Anti-Women.

We really have to get organized and let our local government know that we exist, that we are fed up, and that we are angry.

Yesterday, the State of Connecticut joined several other states in suing President Trump over changes in automobile emission regulations, prior to that, we sued Betsy DeVos over delaying regulation for for-profit colleges (which is actually all of them). Prior to that, we (Connecticut) joined the same states in suing President Trump over Congress’s cuts in the Affordable Care Act and for forcing Congress to codify DACA (If anyone should be angry about this it should be we Conservatives). Now, I am a citizen of the State of Connecticut, and I didn’t OK these lawsuits. They are useless, senseless, and expensive. Just more grandstanding and following the party lines.

We have given up too too much. It is time to take it back.

We are going to be focusing on the Governor’s race next week.

 

 

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Conservative Party of CT Platform

Abstract word cloud for Party platform with related tags and terms

Pulling It Out of The Ditch

We have relinquished too much control to our elected officials. They have become arrogant and many look down upon us as the riff raff, the hoi polloi. It is time to rein them in. Initially, this can be done by providing more citizen oversight. The elected officials are public servants, employees.

As their bosses we need to start demanding more, and holding them accountability.

Connecticut, as a business would be an entity of about the size of Nordstrom. The Company called Connecticut is somewhat smaller that the Hartford Financial Group which has about 17,000 employees. Connecticut has well over 60,000, but there is another important distinction. The Hartford Financial group and Nordstrom need to produce their revenue. The great majority of the employees of The Hartford and Nordstrom need to produce something of value to sell to people to make money, they also need to spend money and hire people to sell whatever they have produced.

Connecticut does not even have to do that. The government of the state of Connecticut produces nothing, all the revenue that come into the state are taken from the earners. All the state must do is redistribute the money. And, for the most part, it has the capability to do this simple task pretty good. The problem is, the state does not limit its role to that of a redistributor of money. It is when the state gets into the process of providing the services that the system breaks down.

Consider this. Food stamps and housing assistance. Many people need help, from time to time. Most reasonable people will say, I would like to help and do so. So, the taxpayers, give the state some money. The state figures out who needs assistance and it gives them food stamps. The people take the stamps to the store buy stuff and for the most part. The system works fine.

But, what if the state of Connecticut decided to set up stores and not only be limited to just redistributing the money, but also providing the services. What happens then? Well, the DMV for one. It turns out your get one big fat megillah, complete with long lines, snail’s pace service, cost overruns, maximum errors and closed on Columbus Day, MLK Day, Washington’s B’Day and some other days on which the rest of us are at work.

So, the DMV is bad enough, but, in the worst case, people wait a few extra days or weeks for a driver’s license on which their picture looks more like their thumbprint. What about the Department of Children and Families? Here is a critical function which the state is neither qualified nor structured to fulfill. In these cases, kids die.

The solution is to utilize the state government for the function they were designed to provide, the redistribution of wealth. I have some libertarian ideas, but I don’t buy the radical objectivism a la Ayn Rand. There is a place for pure altruism and there is a place, with the consent of the governed, for limited, forced altruism.

And if there is someone who is well-off, fat, happy and comfortable and if another one is hurting, or hungry, or homeless, or sick it is ok to take some fruits of the labor of the former to relieve the latter. However, I am talking about food, and shelter and life-saving surgeries – not Obamaphones, or errand-running services.

I don’t agree with the Democrats who are saying that they are helping to poor by, making poverty more comfortable

Set the government up more like a corporation. The CEO is the governor, but the citizen oversight committee is the board or directors. We elect the directors and the director appoint the governor. The governor service at the pleasure of this board

  • Privatize everything that can be privatized. The government should do nothing except oversee the redistribution of wealth.
    • Example thousands of people are helped with food stamps, because the state determines the need and the private sector provides the service. What would you get if the state decided to own and operate their own supermarkets? The result would be the DMV or the DCF
  • Eliminate funding of political races but make it easier for people not connected to one of the two major parties to seek office (i.e. less signatures needed, less paperwork, submissions)
  • Scrap SEBAC even if we need to try to declare bankruptcy to do it (although states are prohibited from going bankrupt, there may be a workaround), and enter into fair contracts with the remaining employees (after extensive privatization) that emulate employees in the private sector. Enter into PPP for most assets that the state owns that are reasonably applicable (XL Center, municipal parking and buildings).
  • This should shrink government by a two-thirds.
  • Establish some accountability for elected employees and eliminate their pensions and perks if they don’t meet certain established goals and objectives.
  • Encourage third, fourth and fifth major parties to break the monopoly of the Dems/Reps (Dems and Reps only have loyalty to the party not to us, it is the party that gets them elected, and it is the party to whom they are loyal)
  • Establish a Citizen’s Review Panel for contracts and bills in which there would be an inherent conflict of interest, as well as travel (Malloy went to Afghanistan, Paris, Kuwait, Virginia, LA, DC, China, and Zurich) with nothing to show, useless expenditures.
  • Segregate all expenses related to State Employee’s Unions including unfunded pension liabilities and establish a separate tax apart from income tax for these expenses so that taxpayers can see directly how much this cost. Esp. effective if SALT is eliminated from fed income tax.
  • All finstats in accordance with GAAP (or as close as possible)
  • Outside accounting firm to maintain all financial books and records. It is just ridiculous that there is no consensus on the actual amount of the deficit. Every single CEO can tell you what the company earned or lost during the last period.
  • Review all non-constitutional departments (non-constitutional NOT unconstitutional), agencies, boards, councils and commissions for ROI, duplication, and necessity.
  • Eliminate Office of Policy and Management (OPM, otherwise known as Other People’s Money). No more hiding expenses. Real transparency. Just like the SEC requires for publicly traded companies.
  • Bring back CT-N, and a summary of expenditures and bills passed along with costs (privatized, of course).
  • Legalize marijuana and tax it.
  • Introduce and Pass the No-Sanctuary Bill
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Stand or Take a Knee?

I haven’t watched any football games this season or last. Not because of protests, but for two purely non-political reasons. Both the Giants and the Jets suck. And, I have a 6-year old and a 12-year old, and I don’t get much TV control. I would rather watch Sponge Bob with them than Eli Manning by myself.

 

The protest started a little over a year ago when Colin Kaepernick refused to stand during the national anthem, his explanation was, “I refuse to honor the flag of a country that oppresses it blacks and minorities.”

OK, that’s pretty straightforward. His belief is that the USA is a nation of racists. I can understand that. If I sincerely believed that I were living in a country comprised of 300 million racists I would refuse to honor that flag also. Although I would probably stand, but do so with hand raised and middle finger extended. That is a horrible country. However, I don’t agree with Mr. Kaepernick or his opinion of my country.

Kaepernick walked back his statements over the next few weeks and decided that he was really protesting against police brutality against blacks. He claimed that he loved his country, although he made that claim while wearing a Fidel Castro tee. Fidel was the oppressor-in-chief for 50 years in Cuba, so this certainly confused the message. He also wore socks depicting police as pigs, which, I guess, was to emphasize how he was refocusing his protest.

Over the past week, hundreds of NFL players, “took a knee” during the playing of the anthem, coaches of Peewee Football teams are forcing their 8-year-old players to kneel and turn their backs on the flag when the anthem is played, and the entire faculty and many students of the Georgetown University School of Law posed for a photo-op “taking a knee” to protest Jeff Sessions speech promoting free speech, so the protest has grown from protecting rights of some while eliminating the rights of others.

The left immediately applauded the heroics of not only the players, coaches, students and faculty, but also the owners, for standing against something or other. The only message that I received was that one side is protesting against the flag and the national anthem although the purpose is still not clear. What is the protest against?

The other side, the right, sees this protest as disrespectful of the flag, the country, the military, the veterans, motherhood and everything that is good and holy.  Clearly there is not a meeting of the minds.

Stop reading this and do a Google search of, “Why are the NFL players protesting the national anthem?”

There are dozens, perhaps hundreds of opinion journalists who offer “The Real Reason that the NFL Players are Protesting the National Anthem.” Each one has their opinion of why this is taking place, why they are doing it and what it means and doesn’t mean? Actually, they are all wrong and, in my opinion, rather pompous and arrogant, as no one really knows the “Real Reason” because perhaps there are many, and perhaps there are none.

Those on the left, attribute it as a protest against nearly every liberal point and the perceived bigotry, racism, homophobia, LGBTQ2DR-phobia etc., etc., and of course, fascism.

Some on the right, such as myself, admit that they don’t understand it. To me, if this is actually about police brutality why then is no one talking about police brutality? Add to that that nobody is out there supporting police brutality. Bizarre.

And why the flag and the national anthem, symbols of America and all Americans?  Seems like some form of referred anger. It is like a guy punching his wife in the nose because he is mad at his boss.

Does anyone on the left have any comments? This is really one of those issues that I sincerely don’t understand.

Why is the protest taking place? Are we a nation of racists as Kaepernick believes? And, why is refusing to stand for the national anthem an appropriate form of protest against (_______________) fill in the blank?

 

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We Work For Them Now

As of a couple days ago, Connecticut taxpayers now have two welfare classes to pay for, for the next ten years and there is nothing we can do about it

This is nothing new, these two welfare classes that have existed for decades and have been perpetuated and nurtured by governors and legislatures of both parties, but now there is nothing we can do about it.

I am talking about first, the nonproductive welfare class, that in many cases, really need our help because of unfortunate circumstances or lack of abilities. To Democrats this means that we must focus on redistribution of wealth and income inequality. This has had the result of moving the poverty rate from 14.5 to a little below 14% over the last 50 years. The Dems seem to be satisfied with making poverty more tolerable (ObamaPhones, yeah). To Conservative Republicans (and there are a few left) and the “now extinct” moderate Democrat, this means providing more opportunity. After fifty years it might be time to try that.

The second welfare class is the bureaucracy. The now-protected species of employees who go about performing the government’s work of redistributing the fruits of the labor of those who are not fortunate to be in either of these classes – A.K.A. the Producers.

The fact that we have a union boss of the second welfare class as Speaker of the House should be evidence enough that we have become subjects to the tyranny of these protected classes – the nonproducers and the bureaucrats.

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MLK – The Great Peacemaker

Disgracing Dr. King’s Message

John Lewis IS the Problem.

And so is Maxine Waters, and Elizabeth Warren and many others, both Republican and Democrat, who have a distorted sense of what their jobs are.

An elected official’s responsibility is to his or her constituents not to his or her party.

How is Lewis’s constituency served by trying to delegitimize the president? How is it served by Lewis, Waters and Warren stating that they will do everything in their power to cause the President of the United States to fail. In that regard, I think that they stand more with President Vlad Putin or Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei than with their constituents.

What is their problem?

They state that the President-Elect is not the President Elect because the Russians hacked the DNC and John Podesta’s email which revealed that the Dem’s candidate had one position that she presented to the public while she actually held a different position. The hacked emails also revealed that John Podesta harbored a deep dislike for Catholics. They revealed widespread collusion between the mainstream media and the DNC. They revealed that the President of the United States lied about not knowing that his Secretary of State was using an unsecured email server. Etcetera. Etcetera. Etcetera.

So, what exactly affected the election? Was it the content of the emails and the secrets that they revealed or was it the fact that it was the Russians that did so? If the hypothetical 400-pound guy in his parent’s basement was the hacker instead of the Russians, would it have made any difference?

If a murderer was found guilty of murder would it make any difference if the eyewitness was a bad guy or a good guy? A Russian or a fat guy? Remember that no one is disputing the accuracy of the hacked emails. Should the murderer be declared innocent because the evidence, although accurate, was supplied by a bad guy?

Mr. Lewis, in a time when our nation faces so many problems. The increase in crime, in poverty, in joblessness which occurred over the last decade. The decline in race relations. The exacerbated problems in the Middle East which threaten the safety of our homeland. Is it really time to continue the divisiveness and hatred?

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Remember When the DOJ Went After Bad Guys?

Loretta Lynch – Police Are The Problem

Loretta Lynch issued a 164-page report villainizing the second largest police department in the country. Patterns of racist, abuse, excessive force were all there. The report took 13 months to assemble and research, however, the research was apparently limited since many high officials in the department were never contacted.

Nevertheless, the report fits snugly into the Obama administration’s narrative that the police are the problem and that police departments are institutionally racist. .

Except for the numerous anecdotal, it was quite predictable for both the SJWs and the supporters of the police. It was pretty much what everyone expected that it would say as Lynch’s Department of Justice, like Holder’s before her, seems to place a high priority on “getting” police departments.

Chicago’s mayor, Rahm Emanuel, a close friend, and former Obama Chief of Staff, promised cooperation with the Department.

Although the report detailed page after page of scathing indictments of the police, Lynch praised the city officials who “worked hard and thoughtfully” on reforms.

Over the last decade, it seems that agencies of government have become like the mainstream media and simple “echo chambers” of the executive department’s narrative. The agent’s do their jobs and the Director spins the results to suit the White House and to fit the storyline.

Consider George Tenet’s strong pitch to President Bush for the existence of WMDs in Iraq and the spin that convinced most of congress to concur with the necessity to invade. Later, when Colin Powell presented the information to the United Nations it hardly seemed convincing. Similarly, Director Comey went on for 30 minutes laying out a cogent case for convicting Hilary Clinton and then delivering his decision that he would not prosecute like a punch line. Who, in their right minds would believe that Lois Lerner’s computer broke and she lost all her emails and that there were no backups.

It seems that the Administration’s boast that the passage of Obamacare depended on the “stupidity of the American people” can be applied to most of the governmental agencies.

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GrabYourWallet’s Targeting of Individuals Changes The Game

Here we go again. All the fears that the left tried to instill in voters during the two years preceding the election are coming true. However, instead of enraged Trump voters using Gestapo tactics in the street, rioting, beating up opponents, destroying property, pledging sabotage and disruption of inaugural events it is the left that is doing the exact same thing that they said Trump voters would do if the situation was reversed.

Now, because one board member of L.L. Bean made a contribution of $5,000 to a PAC supporting Trump the far-left lunatic-fringe website www.grabyourwallet.org is urging the boycott of the Maine company. Ms. Bean, the granddaughter of the founder, defended her right to make her own decision on whom to support in the election, and emphasized that she is a private citizen and made this contribution on her own behalf and the donation was not from the Company.

The radical organization’s attempt to terrify and shakedown a private citizen represents a departure from the position of many activist organization who target companies with whom they disagree with on political positions rather than individuals. GrabYourWallet has expanded that to include targeting of private citizens and although I have no statistical evidence, it is reasonable to expect that if an organization targets individuals who voted or contributed to candidates with whose political views they did not agree, they would probably be boycotting nearly every US-based company of any size. I’ll wager Ben and Jerry’s has a director or an officer who did not vote for HRC.

I just bought three shirts and a pair of boots from L.L. Bean, something that I have never done before. I did this to support Ms. Bean and the hard-working Americans at L.L. Bean. At the Conservative Party of Connecticut we do not participate in boycotts, we believe in free-markets and freedom of speech and respect everyone’s right to their opinion. I even ate Kellogg’s Fruit Loops for breakfast although I think Kellogg’s opposition to freedom of speech and support for hate groups is despicable. Nevertheless, it is their money and they can do what they want with it. In contrast, I urge all our members, supporters and non-supporters to support the right of individuals to express their opinion without fear that organizations will attempt to punish the financially regardless of the collateral damage done. Meaning that targeting a company just because a member of their board holds political opinion harms workers and shareholders regardless of their own politics.

Buy something from L.L. Bean this weekend. Let’s make this a very good sales weekend for them.

The Conservative Party of Connecticut has requested that GrabYourWallet provide an explanation for this bizarre action.

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Obama’s Final Betrayal

By Nick Malino

 Barack Obama had the chance to slap Israel in the face once more before he leaves office. I guess he couldn’t resist it. In a startling reversal of decades of diplomacy, Obama sided with the Arab nations and its Palestinian component and tacitly condemned Israeli settlement activity, “on Palestinian land”. Perhaps this act provided the president with additional cruel satisfaction since he was able to deliver this diplomatic fist to Bibi’s gut on Hanukah eve.

 Obama has displayed a lasting disdain for Israel and has thrice snubbed Prime Minister Netanyahu during his last three visits to this country. But personal feelings against Jews, Israel and the PM should not affect our country’s relationship with its closest, and perhaps only, ally in the Middle East, and NO. I am not including Iran as an ally even though Mr. Obama considers them, “Our partner in peace.”

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