Senator Chris Murphy won a third six-year term to the U.S. Senate on November 5th. Three weeks later he reported having a hefty $5.6 million in his never-ending campaign account.

Murphy ends 2024, both a successful and disappointing year for the career politician, by asking supporters and others for…..more money. The demagogue sent text messages “a humble request.” His “final FEC deadline” is at midnight. He needs money to “demonstrate the depth of support for our movement.” That “movement” would be the Friends of Chris Murphy campaign committee. The campaign has ended. This now becomes a slush fund with a lot of dough sloshing around.

Murphy’s movement is an amorphous concept. He is the Senate’s champion of removing the designation of the Houthis as a foreign terrorist group. The Houthis have been disrupting world shipping by firing missiles on ships in the Red Sea since the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel. In the immediate aftermath of the assassination of health insurance executive Brian Thompson, Murphy put on his baseball cap, looked into a camera and designated healthcare executives “killers.”

It is an odd movement indeed that is harsher on American healthcare executives and Murphy movement donors than it is on the murderous Houthis, whose slogan is “God is great, death to the U.S., death to Israel, curse the Jews, and victory for Islam.” Or maybe the Connecticut Democrat will use the movement funds to help the lonely young men he goes on about to find some friends.

A new year will bring new fashions and a fella can always use some money to sniff them out and run to the front of them.

December 31, 2024.

Dear Friends of Daily Ructions,

You enjoy this site–Where Connecticut’s News Begins–throughout the year. There is no subscription fee and ads do not interfere with your reading. Readers might be bereft without Daily Ructions–and so would nervous tipsters.

This year, I have a request.

You live in peace. Our Ukrainian brothers and sisters in freedom do not. Thousands have succumbed to Russian genocide. Millions are in daily range of Russian arms aimed at Ukrainian civilians, hospitals, and schools. Rape has long been a Russian weapon of war. Thousands of Ukrainian children have been abducted into Russian servitude.

The actor Liev Schreiber has been a heroic supporter of Ukraine since the February 2022 Russian invasion. He and others of goodwill founded BlueCheck Ukraine. Its purpose:

BlueCheck Ukraine identifies, vets, and fast-tracks urgent financial support to Ukrainian NGOs and aid initiatives providing life-saving and other critical humanitarian work on the front lines of Russia’s war on Ukraine. They have the proximity, local knowledge and access to assist those in desperate need.

I have raised thousands for BlueCheck Ukraine without making a public appeal. It is not enough. The brave people of Ukraine are fighting for us at the frontline of freedom. Their fight is our fight. And now, with the result of the 2024 American presidential election, they are in danger of being abandoned by the United States but not before being forced to accept ruinous terms of a peace agreement brokered by an autocrat and his admirer.

Winston Churchill said to Neville Chamberlain of the 1938 sellout of Czechoslovakia in Munich, “You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, and you will have war.” An incoming president and his running mate made clear during the recently concluded campaign that they are willing to embrace dishonor.

You and I do not have to choose dishonor. We can help Ukraine by donating to BlueCheck Ukraine.

To learn more, watch or listen to Margaret Hoover’s moving interview of Liev Schrieber.

Published December 23, 2014.

Sir Les Patterson will not be representing the people of Australia in the United States. Pity.

UK Prime Minister Kier Starmer, who won a landslide victory in July 4th’s general election and ends the year startlingly unpopular, decided to deal a blow to us for Christmas. He’s sending the Dark Prince, Peter Mandelson as our close ally’s ambassador to the United States. Mandelson was forced to resign twice from Tony Blair’s cabinet. Twice. The first time, the BBC reports, “for failing to declare a home loan from a cabinet colleague, and a second time over accusations of using his position to influence a passport application.”

Published December 20, 2024.

State Comptroller Sean Scanlon dealt another blow to Connecticut State Colleges and Universities (CSCU) Chancellor Terrence Cheng’s tenure leading the troubled 85,000 student system. Republican legislative leaders were quick to call for the former University of Connecticut English professor to resign.

House Republican Leader Vincent Candelora and Senator Stephen Harding, who leads the 11 Republicans of the Senate’s 36 members reacted quickly Wednesday afternoon. The two Republicans issued an emphatic statement calling for Cheng’s removal, writing:

“Make no mistake—this is a black eye for the State of Connecticut. While we appreciate Comptroller Scanlon’s proposals to address spending abuses and procedural failures within the CSCU system, restoring public trust demands bold and decisive action. 

That begins with terminating the employment of CSCU Chancellor Terrence Cheng. His continued leadership over a system in clear disarray undermines efforts to restore stability and confidence among students, parents, staff, and taxpayers alike. 

The troubling transactions revealed in today’s report may well be just the tip of the iceberg, emphasizing the critical need to extend the audit process and fully expose how this system has been mismanaged. Failing to act decisively not only excuses unacceptable behavior but also risks eroding trust in all our public institutions.”

The CSCU Board of Regents meets Thursday morning in Manchester. It will not be possible for even the most somnolent members to remain silent in the immediate aftermath of the Scanlon report on reckless spending of public funds. Students, faculty, administrators, and the public will expect a meaningful reaction and plan for the way forward. Regents have known about Cheng’s spending for months. Silence will no longer provide a cover for their distaste.

Published December 18, 2024.

This is not what the top tier of the House Democrats expected. They dismissed rumors that House Majority Leader Jason Rojas would hire fellow East Hartford Democrat and House member Jeff Currey as his chief of staff, replacing the ousted Christy Scott. A lot of people say Speaker Matthew Ritter and his faithful majordomo even have the receipts that Currey would not be getting the plum spot with a handsome salary and little heavy lifting.

It must have been a miscommunication or some texts read out of context that caused the savvy Democrats to think Currey was out of the running–even when in the summer he left the field of battle by giving up his nomination for re-election. There was considerable speculation what awaited the accomplished meddler in party doings. No, some insisted, it would not be to join Rojas.

Currey may be as much symptom of the tensions as cause. Ritter has planted himself as speaker and appears to have no intention of leaving. His roster of committee chairs reveals his clever scheme to keep newer caucus members on side. The child of privilege has overseen his mother snagging a spot on the state’s highest court, the mommy seat. A brother-in-law got a trial court robe. His father, ex-speaker and lobbyist Thomas Ritter, continues on the University of Connecticut Board of Trustees, far beyond his sell-by date. Matthew Ritter trades what he must as both agent and servant of the fourth and most independent branch of government, UConn.

Ritter’s fealty to the bloated UConn bureaucracy costs innocents across the state. Customers of Aquarion Water Company are the most recent to be sacrificed to Ritter’s service to and protection of UConn. Nothing comes free in the Capitol Village.

Ritter, like Mrs. Thatcher days before the fall, pledges to go on and on as speaker. While there is no open revolt, there are the elements of quiet conspiracy taking shape. If Ritter and Rojas remain in place, no women will have occupied the lower chamber’s top jobs for years and years. That does not seem right to many. The Senate has also been without a female in one of its top two jobs since the great Dell Eads was its president pro tem thirty years ago.

Enter a Currey. East Hartford may not be as robust a training ground in the dark arts as, say, New Haven and Bridgeport, but you can learn some ugly business there. Currey knows how to stir a pot while wielding a stiletto.

Ritter may find comments about certain lobbyists’ unfettered access to his office and authority suddenly becomes louder than careful mutters. Full-time caucus employees have plenty of time to chatter and plot and shape the political weather. There may be more storm clouds than the Democrats’ overwhelming majority suggest in December would appear by, oh, April or May.

Who will be Ben Hur? And who will be the broken Messala, who refused to play by the rules?

Published December 13, 2024.

Former federal prosecutor David X. Sullivan is trodding a murky path. Sullivan, the 2020 Republican candidate for Congress in Connecticut’s Fifth District, has let the word go forth that he would like to be the state’s next U.S. Attorney.

How one snags a position that will require a nomination by a Republican president to serve in a state dominated by Democrats can be a mystery. And tricky. Senators Richard Blumenthal and Christopher Murphy use a committee that, if recent federal nominations are any indications, gives little weight to courtroom experience beyond the informal arena of small claims contests.

Connecticut’s Republicans remain fractious and without a winning leader as they wander among the ruins. George Logan would have enjoyed outsized influence had he won his second bid for Congress, but he suffered a bruising defeat last month. Logan, an Ansonia Republican, lost by more than 10 times the margin of his 2022 defeat by incumbent Democrat Jahana Hayes. Republicans lost members in both houses of the state legislature.

Eight years ago, then-Greenwich Time reporter Neil Vigdor listed a host of possibilities for the state’s top federal prosecutor to succeed talented inside operator and Lamont lawyer Deidre Daley. The position went to veteran prosecutor John Durham. He would go on to blot his copy by heading a dubious investigation of Robert Mueller’s investigation of the 2016 Trump campaign’s hundreds of contacts with Russian influence-peddlers. The effort was so questionable by what was left of normal standards that Durham loyalist Nora Dannehy, now a member of Connecticut’s highest court) walked away from the team.

Linda McMahon, the state party’s most prominent member, stayed busy promoting the campaign of loathsome demagogue Donald Trump. She has been co-chair of the of the shuttered Trump University’s chancellor’s transition committee. The results of those efforts–Gaetz for Attorney General, the horrific Hegseth to Defense, Assad booster Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence, medical Luddite Kennedy to lead health policy–cause one to wonder what happened to the moderate Republican who spent $100 million to win a seat in the U.S. Senate. These nominations are stains that will not soon fade. They are not people the 2010 and 2012 Linda McMahon, now Secretary of Education-designate for dismantling, would have supported for vital positions.

Justin Clark, formerly of West Hartford, is said to be on the lucrative inside of the perpetually Blame America First Trump inner circle. The former Al Gore campaign employee is a Trump advisors in what their leader calls “the garbage can of the world.” Clark, who ran Greenwich Republican Tom Foley’s two losing campaigns for governor, was an assistant to the egregious Steve Bannon in 2016 and a key figure in Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign, the won he lost by 7 million votes.

Trump is likely to run out of family members and children’s spouses and ex-fiancès before he gets around to filling the U.S. Attorney post in Connecticut. So someone with a law degree and at least a modicum of law enforcement experience may get the job.

Sullivan spent 30 years as a federal prosecutor before retiring to run for Congress four years ago. He is a lawyer with the well-known firm McCarter & English and teaches trial practice at Yale Law School. Sullivan, 65, said in an interview Friday that he “would be the person to enforce our laws fairly.” That would usually be a prerequisite to consideration for the job but these are different and ominous times. A pledge to enforce laws fairly may be disqualifying for the next four years.

Published December 13, 2024.

Brazil is not a Hispanic country but is Latino. Portugal is neither Hispanic nor Latino. The Thanksgiving tutorial became necessary Wednesday as Governor Ned Lamont began telling Democratic party organization regulars that he has chosen Roberto Alves, first term mayor of Danbury, as the party’s next chairman.

Alves is the child of a Portuguese father and Brazilian mother. Portuguese, not Spanish, is the language of Brazil. Hispanic Connecticut Democrats have long felt overlooked by their party. They hold none of the big prizes statewide office in government or the party.

A holiday revolt among the 72 members of the state party committee was forming Wednesday as Lamont’s chief of staff Matthew Brokman (this year’s Working Families Party campaign pinup) made calls announcing plan to replace outgoing party stalwart Nancy DiNardo with Alves.

The job could give Alves a head start for a spot on the state ticket should an opening occur. This has also roiled ambitious Hispanic Democrats.

Lamont’s interest in naming the next party chair has sent augur observers into a frenzy of speculation that the Greenwich Democrat may be preparing to seek a third term and mount a fifth self-financed state campaign.

Published November 27, 2024.

Governor Ned Lamont’s flawless timing comes into view Monday. The Greenwich Democrat will use the start of the busiest travel week of the year “to give an update on the state’s ongoing effort to prevent instances of wrong-way driving.”

Lamont will also “discuss the importance of road safety” on his trip to Naugatuck. That should lead the governor to share his reaction to the jarring revelations in Marc E. Fitch’s Inside Investigator report of high ranking Lamont adviser Jonathan Dach’s misuse of state vehicles at recklessly high speeds.

Fitch discovered Dach appears to have engaged in the prolific personal use of a state vehicle and on three occasions drove more than 100 mph.

Dach served as Lamont’s third chief of staff before resigning this summer and continuing on the state payroll as an undefined minister without portfolio.

Monday morning’s Naugatuck event will include State Police leader Ronnell Higgins, providing him the opportunity to explain whether Dach was ever stopped for speeding and issued a ticket.

Published November 24, 2024.

Linda McMahon will not be joining the Trump administration as secretary of Commerce. Donald Trump announced Tuesday the post goes to Howard Lutnick, Mrs. McMahon’s transition committee co-chair. For Lutnick, the appointment serves as a consolation prize from his ill-judged bid to head the Treasury Department. Mrs. McMahon, according to Semafor, is said to be “pissed” that Trump has not given her the top Commerce job.

Lutnick received a push for the Treasury post from Elon Musk over the weekend on his social media platform, X. Some people are saying that Musk’s exertions on behalf may be seen as overstepping his place in the hierarchy at the Palace of Palm Beach.

Mrs. McMahon, 76, had been mentioned as the likely choice for Commerce secretary, a considerable step up from her perch at the Small Business Administration (SBA) in the first Trump administration. She had also been mentioned for something at Commerce eight years ago.

The former wrestling executive resigned from SBA after two years to lead a Trump Super PAC, America First Action, for the 2020 campaign, which Trump lost to Joe Biden by seven million votes. McMahon was one of Trump’s most generous donors in 2016, but memories fade over eight tumultuous years.

McMahon was the Republican nominee for the United State Senate in Connecticut in 2010 and 2012. She received 43% of the vote against her Democratic opponent in each campaign.

Linda McMahon was named this year with her husband, Vince McMahon, as a defendant in the salacious “Ring Boys” scandal.

Published November 19, 2024.

America is a generous land of second acts, not all of them well-judged. TaShun Bowden-Lewis was the state’s Chief Public Defender when she was fired earlier this year by the Public Defender Services Commission, after months of turmoil. Her termination was preceded by an overwhelming vote of no confidence by public defenders.

Bowden-Lewis, according to her website, is offering personal and executive coaching; criminal defense and strategic planning consultations; leadership development, and training services. Planning staff outings at hefty cost is not included.

The Bowden-Lewis Group claims the only person featured on its website, Bowden-Lewis, “is an experienced transformative leader with the business acumen and community-focused mindset to deliver results through discipline, integrity, and perseverance.”

Attorney General William Tong recently moved to dismiss Bowden-Lewis’s lawsuit against the Commission for dismissing her after two tumultuous years leading the 400-employee state agency, the first public defender service in the nation.

Published November 9, 2024.