Don Pesci: What Biden may have learned from Connecticut, a progressive Petri dish

Petri dish

VERNON, Conn.

In mid-August 2020, relying largely on then presidential nominee Joe Biden’s Democratic Party platform, I noted that the Biden Administration, in both foreign and domestic policy, would be a repeat of the Obama administration, in which Biden, of course, served as vice president.

This prediction was a bit off-point. The policy prescriptions adopted by the Biden administration indicate that he has bypassed Obama and now postulates Obama prescriptions raised to the third power. Socialist Bernie Sanders, it may be recalled, was more than satisfied with the Democratic Party platform he helped construct.

Biden was sworn in as president on Jan 20.  During an unusually long honeymoon, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Biden have used a narrowed split in the House and a fifty-fifty split in the Senate to consolidate their triumph over former President Trump and Republicans both moderate and conservative.

Just as Roman emperors used to debase their predecessors by a form of cultural evacuation, so the Biden administration has sought to deprive Trump of any lingering accomplishment by reversing his policies, however efficacious and popular. Some inexpungible policies were retained by the Biden administration; there are no signs at present that Biden-Pelosi-Schumer intend to scotch Trump’s successful effort to bring Coronavirus vaccines on line as quickly as possible by throwing overboard some time-consuming federal regulations. But successful policies of much resented predecessors may be allowed to die on the media vine through benign neglect. You lightly touch your predecessors virtues, if at all, and pound like a madman on the vices.    

To mention one notable instance, Biden has reversed Trump’s border policies. And the reversal has reignited a huge onrush of border jumpers seeking to avoid a cumbersome legal-immigration process. Once again, the U.S. border with Mexico has become little more than a demarcation line on a map. The bums-rush of the U.S. southern border by Hondurans, Guatemalans and Salvadorans following Biden’s Trump purgation means, minimally, two things: One, Trump border policies were successful in stemming illegal immigration; and two, unintended consequences often attend the spiteful reversals of prior policies the new regime considers useful for election purposes.

There is, Americans will have noticed during the past few decades, a profound difference between electing battalions of Democrats to Congress and proper governing.

Then too, no one, friend or foe of Democrats, can have failed to notice that the media honeymoon period enjoyed by Biden has been far more prolonged than that of his predecessor Trump, whose honeymoon with a hostile media was as short as the flickering of a firefly’s light at midnight.

Pelosi’s daughter sized up her mother well when she said, “She’ll cut your throat, and you won’t even know you’re bleeding,” a sentiment that might have applied equally to Lucretia Borgia. Years spent in the House seeking to upend Republican majorities have focused Pelosi’s mind wonderfully. Eliminating the filibuster at a time when the House is split almost evenly between Democrats and Republicans and a faltering attempt to halt federal aid to states that persist in cutting taxes is the political equivalent of the Borgia bad habit of spiking the drinks of political opponents with arsenic, strychnine, cantharidin and aconite, poisons used effectively by the millionaire, politically well-placed Borgias.

If you can silence the opposition – regularly done in Connecticut by marginalizing the Republican minority – you need not argue the fine points of constitutional law or the untoward consequences of ruinous policies. What used to be known in healthy, vigorous and necessary media as contrarian opposition simply disappears, both in the General Assembly and in the pages of an increasingly partisan media. Opposition that has no tongue cannot seed the political ground with inconvenient truths. Such truths are strangled in their cribs, or aborted early enough so that an unborn opposition may cause no problems to the ruling class, a potpourri of progressive Democrats allied with a permanent administrative apparatus untouched by moderation and serving always as a permanent fortification against a disappearing “loyal opposition.”

Connecticut, for the last three decades, has been a Petri dish in which progressive policies have flourished. Progressives, programmatically different from liberals, have been most successful in the state’s larger cities, controlled by Democrats, former Republican gubernatorial challenger Bob Stefanowski never tires of pointing out. Stefanowski has incurred the wrath of Democratic-mayors-for-life in the state’s larger cities because the majority party knows that retaining votes in cities is important to all Connecticut Democratic officeholders. With three of the most populist cities in their clutches, Democrats know they have an insuperable advantage over Republicans in a state in which Democrat voters outnumber Republicans by a two to one margin.

The Biden-Pelosi-Schumer triumvirate seeks to repeat on a national stage the “victory” of sorts won by Democrats in Connecticut’s petri dish.

Don Pesci is a Vernon-based columnist. 

Don Pesci: An overdue threat to Connecticut unions.

As June opened, the  Connecticut State Democratic Party held a fundraiser in Hartford. The usual political celebrities were in attendance, along with deep-pocket notables. For once in a long while, state unions in Connecticut were on the outside looking in – and protesting.

It was a difficult moment for union-friendly Democratic politicians.  Passing by State AFL-CIO President Lori Pelletier, Comptroller Kevin Lembo paused for a moment, bussed Ms. Pelletier on the cheek, acknowledged the protesters, and moved into the Hartford Convention Center to join those hawking for money at the Democratic Party fund-raising event.

Money, everyone knows, is the mother’s milk of politics. A political organization without money has no power; for power, the ability to convert ideas into practice flows in the rut of money. U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, one of the attendees at the fundraiser, has often complained that he must spend a good portion of his time in Congress on the phone, chatting up large donors, a painful process familiar to all office holders. The public is beginning to notice the money-power connection, a constant theme of Bernie Sanders’s quixotic quest for the Presidency on the Democratic Party ticket.

These days, every politician is bought by someone, and Democratic politicians are by no means safe from the politically fatal accusation that influential donors have them on a short leash. Republicans are often cited as being the party of the rich, but in truth the fat-cats on Wall Street against whom Mr. Sanders has raised a stink contribute equally to both parties.  

Many of the union protesters wearing shirts emblazoned with the motto “UNION POWER” likely were Sanders supporters. All of them want Gov. Dannel Malloy’s “progressive” government to take a stick to rich people in Connecticut, boost the progressive income tax, and cease and desist grinding the faces of the poor.

But in fact,  Suzanne Bates of the Yankee Institute reminds us, the Malloy administration did raise taxes on the rich; Mr. Malloy and progressive Democrats in the General Assembly, bowing to union pressure, increased the top tax rate “for single people making over $500,000, or a married couple making over $1 million” by 0.29 percent, a measure that was supposed to increase personal-income tax receipts by $151.5 million.

Despite the progressive knock on the rich, income-tax receipts “continue to decline -- dropping $425 million below projections made before taxes were increased.” In its plunge, Connecticut is beginning to taste the bitter fruit of diminishing returns: It is no longer true in Connecticut that more taxes mean more revenue.

Mr. Malloy, attempting to adjust a chronically out-of-balance budget, has sworn off raising taxes, because Connecticut, which has not yet recovered fully from the Bush-Obama recession, is heavily reliant for its tax revenue on large financial operations in the state; in addition, Connecticut  is losing revenue as one-percenters and large companies move to less punishing, low-tax, low-regulatory environments.

 In his recent budget, Mr. Malloy, the architect of the largest and second largest tax increases in Connecticut history, facing yet another deficit, did what previous Connecticut governors have done from time immemorial: He cut spending across the board, shifted dedicated funds from one to another non-lockbox spending pile, and announced some layoffs. State workers in the executive and judicial branches so far have received only half of the 1,900-to-2,000 layoff notices “the governor said two months ago that he anticipated being ordered by June 10,” according to a posting in CTMirror.

Following the boycotted fund-gathering event, union rank and file protesters, including Ms. Pelletier, disbanded, no doubt congratulating themselves on having made an important political point or two. Only a handfull of protesters showed up. Many influential in the labor movement were in attendance at other events, and some accessed the fund raiser through other entrances, perhaps fearing backlash from the politicians and the rank and file to which they pander.

In the absence of structural changes in how government gets and spends revenue, “necessary” layoffs will continue; however, all state unions are facing an existential threat in new administrative reforms being pressed upon states by the national AFL-CIO union leadership.

At a meeting last March, Ms. Pelletier advised union members that a “mandatory reorganization of all the Central Labor Councils (CLCs)” had been put on the table. The National AFL-CIO, Ms. Pelletier told the group, according to minutes of the meeting, “wants this reorganization to be completed by June of this year.” The reorganization would entail an "agreed upon” confiscation of all per capita income -- i.e. union dues paid by all the Central Labor Councils CLCs.

Under the new arrangement, CLCs would be reformed into “Chapters.” Money and authority would flow from disbanded CLCs to an “area organization(s),” a new group of labor business administrators “which all the chapters are a part of,” according to a message issued by AFL-CIO Northeast Guild Officer Jan Schaffer.

Following the establishment of the provisionally titled “Regional Federation of Labor” apparatus -- targeted to be in place by the end of June -- protesters at the concluded Democratic Party fund raiser likely will see a money raid on reorganized CLC bank accounts by the new mandated regional apparatus. And (see above) he who has the money will forcefully wield power under pain of non-compliance. Under the new arrangement, CLCs would lose their much prized autonomy to as yet uninstalled administrators, who then would parcel out funds and marching orders to former CLCs -- renamed “Chapters” in a larger book written by regional or even national leaders.

Little or none of this information has yet filtered down to union rank and file members. Only delegates and those with approved credentials are allowed to attend the meeting at Connecticut’s annual AFL-CIO convention in Hartford on June 9 and 10.. One may expect resistance from delegates not in agreement the new national AFL-CIO edict, but that resistance can only begin after rank and file unionized workers become aware that delegates and other decision makers have failed to be transparent with members not privy to orders from above issued by leaders who fear transparency and honest dealing.

Don Pesci is a Vernon, Conn.-based political writer.

Llewellyn King: In search of the real Elizabeth Warren

I went to Boston last week in pursuit of the real Elizabeth Warren. You see, I don’t think that the whole story of Warren comes across on television, where she can seem overstated, too passionate about everyday things to be taken seriously.

Like others, I've wondered why the progressives are so enamored of the Massachusetts senator. Suffolk University (in Boston), mostly known for its authoritative polls, gave her platform as part of an ongoing series of public events in conjunction with The Boston Globe. But whether the dearest hopes of the progressives will be fulfilled, or whether the senior senator from Massachusetts has reached her political apogee is unclear.

What I did find is that Warren has star power. She is a natural at the podium, and revels in it. At least she did at Suffolk,  where the cognoscenti came out to roar their affirmation every time that she threw them some red meat, which she did often.

Here's a sampling:

On student loans: “The U.S. government is charging too much interest on student loans. It shouldn’t be making money on the backs of students.”

On the U.S. Senate: “It was rigged and is rigged [by lobbyists and money in politics]. The wind only blows in one direction in Washington ... to make sure that the rich have power and remain in power.”

Warren's questioner, Globe political reporter Joshua Miller, led her through the predictable obstacle course of whether she was angling to be the vice-presidential candidate if Joe Biden runs and becomes the Democratic nominee. She waffled this question, as one expected, admitting to long talks about policy with Biden and declaring herself prepared to talk policy with anyone. She said  the subject of the vice presidency might have come up.

Short answer, in my interpretation: She would join the ticket in a heartbeat. This is not only for reasons of ambition -- of which she has demonstrated plenty, from her odyssey through law schools, until she found a perch at Harvard as a full professor -- but also age.

Warren is 66  and although her demeanor and appearance are of a much younger woman, the math is awkward. There are those in the Democratic Party who say  that she needs a full term in the Senate to get some legislative experience and to fulfill the commitment of her first elected office. But eight years from now, she'll probably be judged as too old to run for president.

Clearly, Warren didn't fancy the punishment and probable futility of a run against Hillary Clinton. But the vice presidency might suit her extraordinarily well, given Biden’s age of 72.

Warren has stage presence; she fills a room. She is funny, notwithstanding that you can be too witty in nation politics, as with failed presidential aspirants Morris Udall and Bob Dole. She reminds me of those relentlessly upbeat mothers, who were always on-call to fix things in the children’s books of my youth.

Although Warren comes from a working-class background, years of success at the best schools has left her with patina of someone from the comfortable classes -- someone for whom things work out in life. She counters this by stressing the plight of the middle class, the decline in real wages and her passion for fast food and beer -- light beer, of course.

Warren's father was janitor in Oklahoma who suffered from heart disease and her mother worked for the Sears catalog. The young Elizabeth did her bit for the family income by waitressing.

However, it's hard to imagine her at home at a union fish fry. My feeling is  that she'd be more comfortable -- the life of the party, in fact -- at a yacht club.

Progressives yearn for Warren and she speaks to their issues: lack of Wall Street regulation, and federal medical-research dollars, and the need for gun control, student-loan reform, equal pay for equal work, and government contracting reform.

She is  a classic, untrammeled liberal who is less dour than Bernie Sanders, and less extreme. So it's no wonder that so  many  Democrats long for her to occupy the presidency or the vice presidency.

All in all, I'd like to go to a party where she is the host: the kind where they serve more than light beer.

Llewellyn King (lking@kingpublishing.com) is executive producer and host of White House Chronicle, on PBS. 

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Don Pesci: The Democrats' star slavers dinner

In case anyone has not noticed, we are in the midst of a Nietzschean transvaluation of all values epoch.  Last week, the U.S.  Supreme Court raised the roof on marriage to accommodate gays, striking down with one bold stroke state laws governing marriage that the justices and the editorial board of the New York Times thought primitive and unnecessary.

Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy, WFSB reported, “called the decision historic and had a LGBT pride flag flying at the Governor's Residence in Hartford on Friday. ‘This is a historic moment, and we should recognize and celebrate its significance. Equality, freedom, justice and liberty – all recognized by the Supreme Court in this ruling that moves our nation forward,’ Mr. Malloy said.” His administration, Mr. Malloy has said previously, is the gayest in state history and has been full of historic moments.

“Well, Scott Walker, if you believe the next president’s job is to encourage bigotry and to treat some families better than others, then I believe it’s our job to make sure you aren’t president. That’s just a taste of the ugly picture of Republican leadership,” said progressive flamethrower U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, during the Democratic Party’s annual Jefferson, Jackson, Bailey dinner at the Connecticut Convention Center.

Ms. Warren disappointed progressives when she refused to enter the primaries as an alternative candidate to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Some progressives, Connecticut’s own Bill Curry among them, think that Mrs. Clinton is a middle-of-the-road Democrat of no strong principles who, once in office, will surrender to the blandishments of non-progressive Democrats.

In addition, she seems pox-marked with various scandals she may not be able to overcome. The loss of the bully pulpit after eight years of autocratic rule by progressive President  Obama would amount to a revision of values that would put a serious dent in the good humor of progressives as displayed by Ms. Warren in what might have been a thumping presidential stump speech. Scott Walker, she says twice elected governor of Wisconsin, is a bigot; Jeb Bush wants to privatize Social Security; Texas Sen. Ted Cruz wants to repeal Obamacare and provide tax breaks for Big Business; and former President  Reagan’s trickle-down economics was “nothing more than political cover for helping the rich and helping the rich become more powerful.”

That sort of bumper-sticker thought went smoothly down the throats of the 1,300 Democrats in attendance who purchased tickets beginning at the non-proletarian price of $185 to hear Ms. Warren spank the behinds of Republican presidential candidates. Not a serious candidate for president herself, Ms. Warren is under no compunction to lay out a domestic and foreign policy program that might garner a sufficient number of votes to propel her into the White House; this is the unhappy lot of Mrs. Clinton, whose candidacy Mrs. Warren has not yet fulsomely endorsed. However, progressive Friends Of Warren (FOWs) here in Connecticut, among them uber-progressive Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, have thrown in their lot with Mrs. Clinton and her scallywag but loveable husband.

Ms. Warren’s appearance at Connecticut’s Jefferson, Jackson, Bailey fundraising dinner was rich in irony. The event itself is named after two slavers and an Indian killer; Andrew Jackson, the founder of the modern Democratic Party, was both a slaver and an Indian killer. John Bailey, the last Democratic Party boss in Connecticut, was innocent of these crimes against humanity, and he was an upstanding Democrat too, though politically he was not as ferocious a progressive as Ms. Warren.

On  slavery, Jefferson was somewhat torn. Unlike George Washington, he did not liberate his slaves in his will; he thought blacks were primitive and therefore unworthy of full manumission. Both Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Jackson breeded slaves for private gain. Of the two, Mr. Jackson was less conscience-stricken by what the founders called our “peculiar institution.”

Not only did Mr. Jackson own hundreds of slaves, he vigorously prohibited abolitionists from distributing tracts condemning slavery, tabled abolitionist activity in Congress and was himself a slave trader, according to a piece in Salon.

But it was as an Indian killer That Mr. Jackson excelled. T.D. Allman argues in “Finding Florida: The True History of the Sunshine State” that brutality was a habit of mind for Mr. Jackson long before he prepared the ground as President for the Trail of Tears, the forced death march that killed 4,000 Cherokees in 1838-39.

Slaving and Indian resettlement were not unrelated in that brutal mind. As early as 1816, then-U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Andrew Jackson displaced Spanish-speaking black and Choctaw Indian in Florida because he feared that a free black community nearby might serve as a magnet for runaway slaves. Mr. Jackson convinced his subordinates that the blacks and Indians, free under Spanish rule, were bent on “rapine and plunder,” when in fact they were small farmers raising crops.

The news that there is a move underfoot across the nation to re-title all Jefferson Jackson dinners trickled down late to Connecticut. Blue Virginia may already have gone Jacksonless by the time this column appears in print. As a progressive, Ms. Warren’s conscience is exquisitely tender, which is why she called the inoffensive Mr. Walker a bigot. How a woman of such refined feelings could bring herself to participate in a function that honors both herself and Mr. Jackson, a slaver and Indian killer, is a deep puzzlement. Following Ms. Warren’s appearance, The Democratic Party in Connecticut belatedly scrubbed the names of both Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Jackson from their annual fund appeal dinner.

Don Pesci is a Vernon, Conn.-based political writer.