Published March 17, 2023.

State Representative Robin Comey (D-Branford) has been arrested after driving into and onto a parked car on Capitol Avenue in Hartford. Fox61 has details.

Daily Ructions readers will remember Comey from a video, posted above, of the Branford Democrat’s incomprehensible comments during a House floor debate two years ago. Comey blamed “anxiety, exhaustion, and, regrettably, the wine I had with dinner” for her drunken display. at the time, Comey claimed that ”out of an abundance of caution” she did not drive home that night.

Caution appears to have had no role in Comey’s Thursday night endangering the streets of Hartford.

Published March 16, 2023.

Early in the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump belittled John McCain’s military service in Vietnam. “He’s not a war hero,” said Trump of McCain at a Family Leadership Summit. “He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” McCain spent 5 1/2 years in a North Vietnamese prison camp after being shot down over Hanoi while on his 23rd flight mission. When the Communist government of North Vietnam tried to score a propaganda victory by releasing McCain after his father became commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, McCain refused to violate the POW code of accepting release before fellow prisoners who had been captured earlier.

Governor Ned Lamont sounded a lot like Trump recently when he spoke of replacing state hero Nathan Hale with lexicographer Noah Webster. Hale was hanged as spy by the British in 1776. Lamont observed that Hale was a “nice enough guy who was captured after a week at the inn. If he had two lives to give for his country, he would have been a spy for us for two weeks.”

Lamont seems to think of himself as a public personality in addition to being governor. He often compares himself to the title character in the series “Ted Lasso”. Now the governor has reduced Hale to material for the Democrat’s strained comic act. If Lamont does believe Hale is no longer worthy of being Connecticut’s state hero, then the governor has revealed something far more unsettling.

Hale was a distinguished student at Yale and joined the Connecticut militia in 1775. He fought in the Battle of New York when the British overwhelmed the Continental Army, forcing George Washington’s troops to flee across the Hudson River under cover of a thick fog.

Washington needed intelligence on British movements and asked for volunteers to disguise themselves and return to New York. Hale volunteered, entered New York, and was caught by the British. They executed him by hanging on September 22nd. He is famously said to have declared at the gallows, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”

Webster, born in West Hartford in 1758, was a teacher who became an important dictionary and textbook writer, publisher and entrepreneur. Webster was also one of the Federalists’ busiest proponents of private wealth over personal virtue as the foundation of a free nation. Webster’s American history textbook did not mention slavery. He is a curious figure for Lamont to champion as a means to denigrate Nathan Hale.

Published March 16, 2023.

Former Hartford mayor Ann Uccello died Tuesday at the age of 100. She enjoyed a remarkable run in elective office between 1963 and 1971. A Republican, Uccello won a seat on Hartford’s city council in 1963 and was er-elected two years later.

As the highest vote-getter for the city council in 1967, Uccello became mayor of Hartford in 1967, he first woman in the nation to lead a state capital. Direct, partisan elections for mayor resumed two years later. She entered the 1969 campaign as a distinct underdog. Democrats enjoyed a vast advantage in voter registration. They nominated lawyer Joseph Adinolfi. Two petitioning candidates, Wilbur Smith and Ned Coll, attracted Democratic voters from Adinolfi.

Uccello eked out a narrow victory in 1969, cementing her place as a formidable statewide political figure. She was a steady hand in a tumultuous era. She considered bids for governor and U.S. Senate in 1970. State Democrats entered the year in considerable disarray. A large state deficit loomed. Incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Thomas Dodd had been weakened when censured by the Senate in 1967.

Republican leaders, including President Richard Nixon and Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, urged Uccello to run for the open First Congressional District. With her path blocked by U.S. Representatives Thomas Meskill, who was running for governor, and Lowell Weicker, a loyal Nixon supporter and the party regulars’ choice for the Senate, Uccello gave way and ran for the 1st, which had not elected a Republican since 1956. She was so well-known that her campaign bumper stickers did not include her name but featured Uccello’s photograph and the slogan “Courage to Do What Must Be Done.”

Divided 1st CD Democrats’ nominating convention lasted two days, followed by a summer primary won by state insurance commissioner William Cotter, a party organization loyalist. Uccello lost to Cotter that November by 1,100 votes, losing only Hartford and Bloomfield. Meskill and Weicker won their races–as Uccello likely would have done.

Uccello resigned as mayor the next year to take a position in the U.S. Department of Transportation. She ran in a special election for the 1st CD after Cotter’s 1981 death. Uccello lost to then-Secretary of the State Barbara Kennelly, who would hold the seat until ran for governor in 1998.

Ella Grasso–who won a narrow victory for the U.S. House in 1970, would become the first woman elected governor in her own right four years later. Connecticut has not come close to electing a woman to the U.S. Senate.

Published March 15, 2023.

A dozen Democratic state senators and their leader want lobbyists to make maximum $1,000 contributions to state Senator John Fonfara’s campaign for mayor of Hartford. The event to which lobbyists have been summoned will be held at the Officer’s Club in Capitol complex on Thursday, March 16th from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Pigs-in-a-blanket will be on platters, sitting and standing.

The event is a grotesque violation of the spirit of the state’s ethics laws. Observe life in the loophole. State ethics laws have for decades banned legislators during the legislative session from soliciting lobbyists for contributions to campaigns for state office. The ban has never been extended to legislators running for municipal or federal office during the legislative session.

As legislative committees begin to vote on bills, lobbyists have an urgent need to please Democratic senators. Fonfara’s list of contributors will be public–and lobbyists who give in to this tawdry solicitation will want senators to know they made their maximum effort. Fonfara, of course, is co-chair of the legislature’s finance committee–seen as one of the two more powerful committees at the legislature. A lobbyist who has no business before Fonfara must have no clients.

The invitation lists as sponsors Senate President Martin Looney Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, Senators Cathy Osten, Saud Anwar, Jorge Cabrera, Joan Hartley, Rick Lopes, James Maroney, Patricia Billie Miller, Marilyn Moore, Norm Needleman, Derek Slap, and first among the not-so-equal Senate Democrats Vincent Mauro, who also serves as chair of the New Haven Democratic Town Committee.

This is wrong on a simple reading of the invitation. What makes it worse is that many of those senators drink from their bottomless well of jumped-up righteousness. They garishly parade their own rectitude at every opportunity. And then they go and spoil it all by telling lobbyists with business before them to handover $1,000 to their buddy John Fanfara.

Only a few weeks ago, one sponsor of the shakedown, Anwar, purposed legislation to browbeat and fine voters who exercise their right not to vote. The purpose is to “incentivize civic engagement.” If anyone wonders why many choose not to cast a vote, look at the Fonfara ransom note from Senate Democrats to lobbyists.

Published March 10, 2023.

Let the word go forth: William Dickinson told the Wallingford Republican Town Committee Wednesday night he will not seek re-election after 40 years as mayor, the Record Journal reports. Dickinson has won 20 two-year terms in a row.

In 2021, Dickinson had his closest result in 30 years, defeating 25 year old Democrat Riley O’Connell by 396 votes. O’Connell, who raised $40,000 and knocked on thousands of doors in his contests against Dickinson, is seeking the Democratic nomination for mayor again this year.

It was a busy night in Wallingford politics. In a double act, immediately following Dickinson’s announcement, Republican Town Council Chairman Vincent Cervoni declared his candidacy for mayor. Other Republicans are expected to join the race.

Published March 9, 2023.

New York Times reporter Hannah Dreier revealed abuses of migrant child laborers in the food manufacturing business. The astonishing February 25th story highlighted the appalling conditions endured by migrant children illegally employed making Cheetos, a popular product of Frito-Lay.

The investigation found that food processing company Hearthside Food Solutions–a supplier of Cheetos to Frito-Lay–violates state and federal labor laws by hiring children and requiring them to work in dangerous conditions. In one instance, Dreier reported, “Underage workers in Grand Rapids said that spicy dust from immense batches of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos made their lungs sting, and that moving heavy pallets of cereal all night made their backs ache.” Injuries abound but no one in authority appears to care enough to act. “Unaccompanied minors have had their legs torn off in factories and their spines shattered on construction sites, but most of these injuries go uncounted. The Labor Department tracks the deaths of foreign-born child workers but no longer makes them public,” Dreier and four Times researchers discovered.

PepsiCo, which owns Frito-Lay, declined to comment on the Times story.

Dreier won a Pulitzer Prize for feature writing for her ProPublica series on the travails suffered by Long Island immigrants. She was a 2022 Pulitzer Prize finalist for investigative reporting.

Cheetos have played an outsized role in Governor Ned Lamont’s administration. Frito-Lay makes Cheetos in a Killingly plant. Lamont has been enthusiastic about the expansion of the Cheetos plant since the start of his first administration in 2019. The Greenwich Democrat immediately abandoned his proposal to enact the nation’s first statewide sugary drinks tax the day after he unveiled it when he learned it jeopardized the making of more Cheetos in Connecticut.

PepsiCo owns Frito-Lay and is also one of the world’s premier makers of sugary drinks. Emails obtained after prolonged proceedings before the Freedom of Information Commission revealed the sugary drinks tax did not go down well with Indra Nooyi, a friend of Lamont and his wife, Ann Huntress Lamont. Nooyi enjoyed a long, lucrative and well-chronicled career at PepsiCo. Nooyi served as CEO of PepsiCo for 12 years, stepping down from that position in 2018 but serving as chairman of the conglomerate until early 2019.

Lamont announced at the start of his first term that Nooyi would serve as an economic adviser to his administration. A month later, Lamont unveiled the sugary drinks tax. Mrs. Lamont learned in an email later that day that Nooyi was not pleased, not pleased at all. Yale School of Management Dean Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, acting as an intermediary between moguls for Nooyi, let the Lamonts know that Nooyi was “embarrassed and surprised by the soda tax–avoiding PepsiCo colleagues and media.” Avoiding the media was not something Nooyi had a lot of experience in doing.

The news from Sonnenfeld to the Lamonts grew worse. “The soda tax is likely to cost us the big Frito Lay deal–plus others-I am told first hand.” Mrs. Lamont concluded in a message to the new governor’s top staffers that the soda tax “will cost us the plant and any other goodwill with Pepsi.” Early that day, Lamont explained the virtues of the tax as “intended to encourage healthier food choices by our state’s residents, mitigate future health costs and, if enacted, would place Connecticut last the first state to do so.” Those health benefits and millions in tax revenue could not withstand a scowl from Nooyi directed at Lamont. The threat of abandoning plans to expand the Killingly Cheetos plant killed the tax in less than a day. It was never mentioned again. The Office of the Attorney General, in consultation with Mrs. Lamont, expended many hours resisting the release of the documents that told the sordid tale of influence among Connecticut’s wealthiest residents.

Dreams do come true. In 2021, Lamont concluded a deal to provide $5.5 million in incentives to Frito-Lay in exchange for the company expanding its Killingly plant. Administration spokesman Adam Joseph told Daily Ructions this week that it has not asked Frito-Lay for an explanation of its use of a major supplier that uses and endangers child migrant labor. It’s all about the Cheetos variety of crony capitalism.

The governor has, however, proposed H.B. 6661, a bill to protect workers’ in state financed projects. That legislation should not preclude the governor from contacting Frito-Lay and demanding an explanation and insisting that it cease doing business with companies that exploit migrant children. Maybe he could get Nooyi to join him in a strongly worded letter.

Published March 3, 2023.

Rivereast News Bulletin’s current editions include a call to violence against President Joe Biden on its letters page. The letter, dressed up as a poem, from a reader identified as Don Nowsch of Marlborough is a fourteen line rhyming couplet that describes a Haitian seance that makes contact with John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Abraham Lincoln on Good Friday in 1865. The writer call upon Booth to shoot another president of the United States–this time President Biden “from 1,000 meters.”

To the Editor:
Packed my bags and went to Haiti
Met up with a scary old voodoo lady
Paid her fees so we could move on
Wanted to contact a deceased named John
A voice came through and asked what I needed
Please come back is what I pleaded
What you did before you were labeled zero
Do it today and you’ll be called a hero
He’s murdering our country and the way we live
Only wants to take and never wants to give
John, you don’t have to sneak around in dusty old theaters
Today you can do it from one thousand meters
If bringing back John Wilkes Booth was only that easy
There wouldn’t be a leader that is so sleazy.
Don Nowsch-Marlborough

The Glastonbury Citizen and Rivereast News Bulletin are family-owned newspapers located in Glastonbury. The Glastonbury Citizen covers Glastonbury and also publishes Rivereast News Bulletin. Its circulation area includes the towns of Amston, Andover, Cobalt, Colchester, East Hampton, Hebron, Marlborough, Middle Haddam and Portland.

Contacted by Daily Ructions Monday morning, Rivereast News Bulletin editor Mike Thompson explained his decision to publish the letter:

As the editor of the paper, publishing the letter was ultimately my call. It was an extreme oversight on my part, one which I deeply regret; it was a grotesque letter that obviously shouldn’t have been printed. There simply is no excuse for it. I’ve issued an apology on the Rivereast’s Facebook page and will be running one in the print edition of the paper, and will be seriously reexamining the way letters are vetted in the future.

The letter was first highlighted by Lisa Thomas.

The online edition of the letter has been replaced by a public service ad to SeizetheAwkward.org.

Published February 27, 2023.

More tumult in the perpetually tumultuous city of West Haven. Finance Director Scott Jackson “has decided to move forward in his public service career,” Mayor Nancy Rossi wrote in a joint statement with Jackson released Friday. Jackson added, ”It has been my pleasure to work with so many hardworking city employees and dedicated City Council members to advance the best interests of West Haven.”

Jackson did not mention Rossi in his short paragraph.

The statement concluded, ”No further comments will be issued.” That wish will likely not withstand questions. The state’s oversight board meets next week to continue the crucible of imposing some order on West Haven’s finances.

Jackson is a popular figure who served as mayor of Hamden, the state’s labor and tax commissioner and took on the thankless job of heading the Sandy Hook school shooting task force with few resources.

Rossi has presided over an administration notable for ineptitude and astonishing acts of corruption from within it.

Published February 24, 2023.

An early test of strength for the 2026 Democratic nomination for governor is playing out among two likely contenders. Lieutenant Governor Susan Bysiewicz and Attorney General William Tong are jockeying for the favor of prodigious Democratic fundraiser Alan Lazowski, Daily Ructions has learned.

Tong and Bysiewicz are each lobbying Governor Ned Lamont to appoint Nicole Lake to lead the Department of Consumer Protection (DCP). Lake holds the curiously named position of Chief Impact Officer of Laz Parking. The Democrat has enjoyed many positions in and out of state government. Her Laz Parking profile highlights some of them. They include, according to her online biography, “a wide-ranging legal career. Most recently, she served as Chief Counsel to the Connecticut Attorney General, Vice President & General Counsel to a non-profit healthcare system and Associate General Counsel to a former Connecticut Governor [Dannel P. Malloy].  She has also worked as a consumer protection, labor and legal services attorney.”    

The move comes after Lamont surprised legislators, administration officials, lobbyists and others by declining to reappoint Michelle Seagull to lead DCP. The Greenwich Democrat’s decision was particularly striking because he praised Seagull’s many accomplishments in implementing the governor’s policies, including his ill-judged gaming decisions, while jettisoning her.

Appointing Lake to DCP could cause Lamont uncomfortable moments. Lazowski has been in the crowded competition for cannabis licenses through Higher Purpose LLC and Let’s Grow Hartford, LLC. DCP announced in November that Let’s Grow Hartford, LLC and several other companies were approved to proceed with social equity applications for food and beverage licenses and delivery delivery licenses. DCP both issues and regulates the variety of licenses required to create a cannabis industry in Connecticut. Distance between regulators and the regulated is an essential element.

Any ambitious Democrat wants Lazowski on his or her side. Neither Tong nor Bysiewicz would be able to finance a campaign for governor with personal assets. Bysiewicz was a vocal critic of Lamont financing his 2018 campaign for governor until she became his running mate that year. A candidate participating in the state’s public campaign financing program remains vulnerable for months to a candidate with personal means or a network of generous donors. The public program provides no funds to a candidate who qualifies for them until after the spring state nominating convention. A candidate with means may have had uncontested command of the airwaves for months by then. Republican Bob Stefanowski showed Republicans in his 2018 campaign for governor what an advantage that can be.

Any Democrat wants the entrepreneurial Lazowski’s support. The candidate considering a bid for governor who wins the Lazowski primary in the early going has moved up the leaderboard. It’s not only candidates who want to remain in Lazowski’s favor. They have also been lobbying for Lake to take charge of DCP–the center of marijuana, alcohol and gaming regulation and a busy regulation factory.

Published February 24, 2023.