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Poor Tony Hwang. The thin-skinned veteran Republican is flailing himself into incoherence as scrutiny of his record continues to reach voters in the competitive 28th Senate District.

The Fairfield Republican continues to respond to criticism of his votes on gun control and women’s access to abortion services with buckshot but no specifics. He howls at each roll call revelation. Hwang preaches civility but in the crunch, he abandons it. On Monday, he accused his challenger,Fairfield Democrat Rob Blanchard, of spreading “misinformation and manipulated narrative” to voters in Bethel, Easton, Fairfield and Newtown. Hwang, as is his custom, provides no facts, only an odd demand that “apologies must be made.”

Those apologies should start with Hwang. He mewls about campaign spending on mailers criticizing him. If he did not spend thousands on apparel, golf tees and balls with logos over the years, Hwang might have been able to add substance to his campaigns. Or perhaps not.

Hwang’s dismay about how public funds are spent in a campaign is a new concern. In 2023, Hwang reimbursed himself $2,624.48 for mileage incurred after the election, according to his campaign finance report. They must be post-election miles because the expense did not appear under the “incurred but not paid” section of the previous campaign finance report in 2022. That would be more than 4,000 miles at the allowable IRS mileage reimbursement rate in the second half of 2022 between five days before the November 7th election and three days before Christmas, when Hwang’s campaign committee paid him.

And then there is the curious 2023 post-election expense of $4,000 to a web designer for redesign of a site as well as to post content and photo updates. That expenditure also does not appear in a pre-election report as incurred but not paid. Two months after the 2022 election, Hwang used taxpayer money to pay $6,000 for video taping and editing on January 11, 2023 for services, the report reveals, that were incurred during the entire campaign, but they appear nowhere else, a violation of long established campaign finance rules.

Hwang would have more money to address issues if year after year he did not spend thousands in public funds on shirts, embroidery and food. He does love his embroidered Lacoste clothes–until he started altering photos of them. Perhaps he and his campaign people learned how to do that in the photography class taxpayers paid for them to attend in a previous campaign.

And now with his outbursts of vague outrage, Hwang has taken up a different type of embroidery.

What’s the Lacoste of Tony Hwang? Very high indeed.

Published October 22, 2024.

A 2011 Yale police report accuses Nick Simmons, the Democratic candidate for state senator in the state’s 36th Senate District, as misdirecting and lying to campus police as they sought to apprehend an intruder into a neighboring female student’s apartment bedroom in a building occupied by students, two blocks from the Yale campus.

The report arose out of a complaint by a Yale student who had been confronted by an unfamiliar drunk and agitated male in her apartment at 10:45 p.m. on February 16, 2011. The woman was sitting on her bed when the man entered her bedroom, screamed at her and then lunged at her as he attempted to grab her arms. The woman student was able to flee to another bedroom in the apartment, blocking the door with the aid of an apartment mate. Several minutes later, the two female students took refuge behind a locked bathroom door, as the male Yale student screamed at them and caused damage in the kitchen and other bathroom. From the locked bathroom, the two students were able to call a neighbor for help.  

Two of the seven students who responded to the call for help recognized the intruder. One of them escorted him to a nearby apartment on the same floor “where he was left with his close friend, Nicholas Simmons.”

The police report continues:

Two Yale police officers arrived, spoke with the students and learned the intruder had been taken to Simmons’s suite. One of the officers left voice messages on [the intruder’s] and Simmons’s phones. 

At approximately 24:00 hrs., Simmons returned this officer’s telephone call. Upon advising him I was with the YPD investigating the above incident, Simmons hung up the telephone. 

Shortly thereafter, Simmons again telephoned this officer to inquire as to why we wished to speak with him. Simmons stated he had been asleep in his room for the past three hours. While Simmons was making this call, I was standing outside his apartment. The doors to his apartment were still wide open and the apartment was clearly still unoccupied. At this point I realized Simmons was actually standing in the first floor hallway making the above telephone call. As I walked down the stairs, Simmons fled to an unknown location. 

While checking the exterior of the building Simmons again telephoned this officer and once again said he was in his room. Upon returning to room #302 I met with Simmons in the hallway. He stated he had been in his apartment all night and insisted he had no knowledge of [the intruder’s] whereabouts. Simmons was once again clearly lying. I explained to Simmons if he told any further lies or again misdirected these officers in our investigation, he would be charged with Interfering With a Police Officer, (53a-167a).

The incident ended when police located the intruder at 12:20 a.m. at an entry way to Berkley College. He stated he had consumed 15 shots of vodka and numerous glasses of beers at a party that night. His difficulty walking and speaking caused police to call an ambulance and refer him to Yale administrators. 

Reached Monday, Simmons wrote, “Nearly 15 years ago while I was in college, a person I knew, who was a sophomore when I was a senior was brought into my apartment by friends who said he was making a scene in our building while heavily intoxicated. It was clear this individual had way too much to drink and I told him to leave our building and then escorted him out downstairs. I was unaware of his actions until they were explained to me later that evening and the following morning. As a bystander in this situation who learned of the events after they occurred, it was crystal clear then and remains today that this kind of behavior is unacceptable, should not be tolerated, and must be avoided moving forward.”

The intruder was charged with breach of peace. It takes little imagination to know the incident would likely have been handled far differently in different neighborhoods several blocks from the privileged environs of Yale University.

The 2011 incident was not Simmons’s first encounter with members of the Yale police force–who are vested with all the powers of other police officers in Connecticut. In 2007, two plain clothes officers in the Community Impact Unit were patrolling on York Street near a “an extremely large crowd exiting from Toad’s Place.” The officers, according to their report, “saw Nicholas Simmons emerge from the large crowd in front of Toad’s Place. Simmons walked up alongside the building and began to urinate in plain view in front of the large crowd, all the while talking on the cell phone.”

Simmons was charged with Creating a Public Disturbance, a violation of Connecticut General Statutes §53a-181a. Simmons downplayed his arrest, writing Monday,  “I’m sure many of us would like to go back in time and smack our 18 year old selves for being idiots.”

Simmons is challenging incumbent Republican Ryan Fazio in the district that includes Greenwich, New Canaan, and part of Stamford.

Published October 21, 2024.

State Representative Steve Weir will be off the campaign trail for a few days to join other helicopter pilots as they fly spotters around the Asheville, North Carolina, area look for the bodies of the missing in the continuing aftermath of Hurricane Helene.

Weir left Connecticut early Sunday morning for the six-hour helicopter flight for the staging area at a Harley Davidson facility in Asheville. The Hebron Republican is traveling with National Guard CW3 John Behuniak. They will fly rescuers and their cadaver-detecting dogs to areas that cannot easily be reached by motor vehicles or on foot. It is dangerous but essential work that requires skilled helicopter pilots like Weir.

Weir has answered the call. He texted this morning as he prepared to take his first team into the mountains. It is, Weir wrote, “sobering to realize this has gone beyond search and rescue and now” has become a search and recover mission.

Published October 20, 2024.

A close call averted–for now. CVS installed a new president overnight, replacing Aetna veteran Karen Lynch as the head of the troubled giant healthcare company.

The company’s new leader, David Joyner, spent part of his successful career at Aetna before joining the complex and controversial world of pharmacy benefits management (PBM). Lynch had recently added running Aetna to her portfolio after the abrupt departure of Brian Kane after another disappointing earnings report.

CVS Health Corp.’s stock fell by 12% in the aftermath of the announcement of changes at the top of the company and guidance lowering expected earnings in anticipation of third quarter results to be released on November 6th.

Aetna has been a leader in creating and selling popular Medicare Advantage programs. Profits from the policies millions of older Americans enroll in each year have been targets of the Biden administration and elected officials. Efforts to control the cost of government subsidized healthcare will continue to highlight profits made by major health insurance companies providing Medicare Advantage.

Joyner and CVS board of directors chairman Roger Farah, who will serve as executive chair, told the Wall Street Journal the company will move forward intact. That decision will reassure nervous Aetna employees that the company will not be sold as its stock value continues to suffering a nearly yearlong decline.

Published October 18, 2024.

Democrat Brandi Mondato unleashes the fury of facts on embattled Republican incumbent state Senator Paul Cicarella in the 34th Senate District. A mailing from Mondato to voters in Durham, East Haven, North Branford, North Haven, and Wallingford tells the story of Cicarella’s array of legal issues and adds a paragraph on his support for weakening background checks for gun purchases.

The mailer is a vivid presentation of the disabled Cicarella’s years of state workers’ compensation benefits from a fall on a wet state prison floor. Hearst newspapers investigative reporter Jacqueline Raab Thomas revealed Cicarella’s alleged failure to disclose income while receiving $123,000 in workers’ compensation and disability pension benefits. Cicarella worked as a wrestling coach, private investigator and real estate investor while also receiving disability benefits for the injury he suffered after working for 18 months as a correctional officers.

The Mondato mailer adds the strange odyssey of the two-term Republican building a pool on a neighbor’s property–after the neighbor had warned Cicarella he was encroaching on land that did not belong to him. Nevertheless, Cicarella proceeded. Litigation followed. The terms of the settlement are not public but do include a nondisclosure agreement. The wronged neighbor recently returned to court because, he claims, Cicarella failed to perform his obligations under the secret settlement.

Cicarella has been texting voters in the district that he is “one of us.” That is a blank slate approach to persuasion, inviting voters to attribute whatever their background and beliefs are to the candidate seeking their vote. Defining Cicarella’s notion of “one of us” by revelations this year can mean a nightmare neighbor who plays fast and loose with state workers’ compensation and disability rules. There are not enough voters in the district to form a majority in any of its five towns.

Published October 17, 2024.

Democrat Nick Simmons has raised a hefty $279,000 in his campaign to unseat Republican Ryan Fazio in the 36th Senate District. Fazio is relying on $124,000 in public funds and the $17,000 he raised in small contributions to qualify for the taxpayer money.

Simmons received a maximum individual contribution from state Senator Norm Needleman, the Essex Democrat who serves as the co-chair of the legislature’s Energy and Technology Committee. Fazio is the Senate’s ranking Republican on the committee that has been at the center of complicated issues that will continue to have a profound impact on Connecticut’s future. The committee’s work requires its leaders to possess more sophisticated knowledge than most other legislative committees.

Needleman and Fazio have appeared to enjoy a productive relationship. They worked together on a major piece of legislation in 2023. The state’s urgent energy needs will not be solved with partisan rancor–and the two have kept it out of the committee’s work in this fractious age.

It came as a surprise to see that $1,000 contribution from Neddleman to Simmons, who served as Governor Ned Lamont’s deputy chief of staff before launching his campaign in the spring. There are a few lines left in state politics that one does not cross for the sake of a wider good. Chairs and ranking members trying directly to oust one another from their seats in the legislature was one of them. No more.

Speaker of the House Matthew Ritter’s political action committee gave $1,500 to Simmons. House Democrats have not runout of candidates who could use a late boost, but Ritter has interests beyond the legislature. Greenwich, New Canaan and Stamford send a lot of delegates to Democratic state conventions. An early deposit in the Simmons favor bank may provide a bigger return than helping a couple of struggling Democrats who have been written off by caucus leaders. They too will likely be delegates one day–with their own tales to tell.

Published October 16, 2024

Republican Mike France’s second campaign for Congress in Connecticut’s 2nd Congressional District continues to provide his party with a grim reminder of the high cost of running a serious campaign. France raised $639,859 as of September 30th, according to his campaign finance report. A significant chunk of that has gone to consultants and fundraising, leaving the former state representative with only $65,859 in the critical final five weeks of the campaign–if he does not pay the campaign’s $26,445 debts before Election Day.

Democrat Joe Courtney, the popular nine-term Democrat, raised $1,204,021, through the end of September. He had nearly half of that, $628,178, left for the final sprint to November 5th. Courtney has a loyal statewide network of donors, so he could quickly raise more if he needed it. The former state representative also has a long records of successfully promoting submarines as a critical part of the nation’s defense. Groton-based Electric boat has a workforce of 23,000 and orders for 19 submarines.

In the House, Courtney has become an important and respected voice in the AUKUS security alliance of democratic nations protecting freedom in the Pacific region.

Published October 16, 2024.

A confidentiality agreement precludes the public from knowing the details, but a September 30th motion by Andrew Koutroumanis against state Senator Paul Cicarella in the dispute over Cicarella building an in-ground pool in considerable part on Koutroumanis’s property reveals the matter continues to combust on the extensive court docket.

Koutroumanis claims that the settlement agreement in the action that was initiated in 2023 included an obligation on both parties “not to make public or to disclose to any other persons, including the news media,” the terms of the settlement agreement between the neighbors. Koutroumanis claims he has performed whatever the agreement required of him. Cicarella, the plaintiff asserts, has met neither of the requirements he agreed to in the voluntary settlement.

“The [settlement] agreement sets forth two separate deadline dates for the defendant [Cicarella] to perform various affirmative obligations,” according to Koutroumanis. He claims in his motion to enforce the terms of the agreement, that Cicarella has failed to perform his obligations by the two deadline dates. Koutoumanis asks to court to enforce the agreement since Cicarella has ignored the detailed notice of his default provided by the plaintiff.

This disregard of the agreement is costing Koutroumanis money. Students of Cicarella’s extensive litigation will recall that Koutroumanis showed Cicarella that if the North Haven Republican proceeded with his construction plans, he would be encroaching on Koutroumanis’s property. Cicarella declined to listen.

In another lawsuit, the litigious Cicarella recently withdrew his claim for damages for extensive injuries suffered in a motor vehicle collision in New Haven. The public record contains no details of how the case was resolved. He had been seeking $490,000.00 for his injuries, including surgery on a toe and a 25% permanent disability of his cervical spine.

Cicarella has been the subject of unflattering coverage of his state worker’s compensation benefits. Those arose out of an injury he suffered in 2009, 18 months into his job as a corrections officer. He would later be cleared to return to work on light duty. Cicarella never returned to any job with the state, but he did received hundreds of thousands of dollars in state benefits and has worked as a wrestling coach and private investigator.

Cicarella’s various injuries are likely impeding his ability to knock on doors, remain standing, and exposing himself to sunlight as he seeks a third term.

Published October 7, 2024.

Rob Blanchard, the Fairfield Democrat running in the 28th Senate District, has scored an early October surprise, Daily Ructions can report. Blanchard is the only Democratic Senate challenger to receive the endorsement of the Police Officers Association of Connecticut.

The POACT endorsement will keep incumbent Republican Tony Hwang further on the back foot as he struggles to respond to a savvy challenger occupying the broad middle ground in the four-town district. Republicans have long thought they owned the copyright on public safety issues and police support. That began to crumble when they remained silent in the face of Republican Donald Trump’s assaults on the rule of law. It has grown worse.

Hwang will find it difficult to perform renovations on his reputation in the final weeks of the campaign. Photoshopping his campaign logo from clothes purchased with public campaign funds is an odd way for the former executive searcher freshen his campaign for a sixth term.

The Fairfield Republican was given no opportunity to exercise a small-minded veto of the police association endorsement of Blanchard, like he exercised with the Sierra Club.

POACT “is an organization dedicated to keeping its members informed on legislation being debated at the Capitol which directly affect police officers, their working conditions, their wages and benefits and public safety, and to promote the involvement and action of police officers in such debates.”

The endorsement of the police officers comes on the heels of expressions of support for Blanchard by two gun safety organizations. Mom’s Demand Action designated him a Gun Sense Candidate distinction. He received an “A” grade from Connecticut Against Gun Violence (CAGV).

The 28th Senate District is comprised of Bethel, Easton, Fairfield, and Newtown.

Published October 2, 2024.

Former state Representative Mike France is as bad a candidate in his Second Congressional District bid as he was two years ago. He thinks a pink ribbon will hide his record.

France today posted on Facebook what he may think is a clever acknowledgement of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. There’s something he does not want voters to know. The Republican was one of just three members of the state House to vote against requiring state regulated health insurance plans to cover the cost of 3D mammograms. France cast that vote in April 2016. The tally still tells the tale: 139 yes, 3 no.

The 3D technology largely paid for itself with its advanced technology in providing clear results that significantly reduced the number of doubtful mammograms that required additional imaging. In the long, excruciating march to a cure for breast cancer, advances in technology are in the vanguard. It will profit us nothing if we do not make it widely available through the cost-sharing of health insurance.

In this fractious age, 139 members of the House, Republican and Democrats from across the political spectrum agreed. Only France and two other Republicans voted no.

Now, when France talks about breast cancer, he starts with a joke

Check your breasts, please. And then check France’s record. There’s nothing funny about it.

Published October 1, 2024.