Chris Powell: Saudi connection of governor’s wife; using old motels to help the homeless

The Saudi flag

MANCHESTER, Conn.,

During last year's campaign for governor, leading Connecticut Democrats from Gov. Ned Lamont on down may not have known that they were probably being hypocritical by criticizing the Republican nominee, Bob Stefanowski, for doing consulting work for a company connected to the Saudi Arabian government. 

But now that it has been disclosed that the investment fund company run by the governor's wife, Ann Huntress Lamont, has a partnership with a Saudi government investment fund, try to find those Democrats.

The governor himself can assert that he didn't know about his wife's own connection to the awful Saudis and can note that the connection was listed in a public financial filing somewhere -- as if there is enough journalism left in Connecticut to review such filings promptly, and as if Mrs. Lamont's investment fund issued a press release about its Saudi connection any more than Stefanowski did about his.

Bad as the Saudi government may be, totalitarian and theocratic, it long has been a crucial financial and military ally of the United States, and Stefanowski had a plausible defense for his work in the country, which was to speed the transition from the country's oil-based economy to “green” hydrogen-based energy.

For all anyone knows -- Mrs. Lamont isn't talking -- her partnership with the Saudi government may have similar objectives. Or Mrs. Lamont's company may just be helping to invest some of the U.S. dollars that the kingdom has earned selling its oil to the United States and the rest of the world, oil purchases that long have implicated all Americans in Saudi totalitarianism.

Was Mrs. Lamont's company in partnership with the Saudi company even when her husband and his Democratic colleagues were denouncing Stefanowski for a similar connection? Maybe. 

Did she not mention the irony to her husband? Who knows? 

Since the hypocrisy and sleaze here involve Democrats instead of Donald Trump, will mainstream journalism let it drop?

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Homelessness has risen in Connecticut for a second straight year, even as the state is full of hotels and motels that are operating at less than capacity or aren't  operating at all.

City government in New Haven, where homelessness is acute, is aiming to acquire a local motel to turn it into "supportive housing," providing not only basic shelter but also connection to medical, psychological, and employment services.

Meanwhile, Danbury's zoning board is still disgracefully blocking a bid by a social-service agency to use a defunct motel for similar purposes.

Under-used and defunct motels and hotels are perfect for addressing homelessness. They require no extensive conversion to become “supportive housing” and are in commercial zones -- and lovely as summer in Connecticut is, winter will be here soon enough. 

The homeless, many of whom are mentally ill or drug-addicted, have no political constituency. The economy is not half as good as elected officials claim after they manipulate economic data, and times are getting harder, so escaping from homelessness, addiction and long-term unemployment is more difficult than most people think.

Of course most state residents don't want "supportive housing" nearby any more than they want "affordable" housing nearby, since "affordable" housing can shelter not just young people starting out in life but also the demoralized, addicted, broken-down, and anti-social. But if Connecticut is to remain decent, these people have to be accommodated somewhere so they don't have to sleep under bridges and risk death in the street.

For many months now Governor Lamont has taken the lead with the motel in Danbury, issuing and renewing an executive order exempting it from city zoning. But the order has expired even as homelessness is worsening.

So the governor should use whatever emergency authority he can still muster, calling the General Assembly into special session if necessary, to authorize state government to acquire such property as necessary and to supersede municipal zoning to put a roof over the heads of the forsaken before winter arrives and help them restore themselves, and to ensure that no municipality has to use its own funds to do this.

Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years (CPowell@cox.net). 

Robert Whitcomb: Where we can win; childlessness; water wars

  The metastasizing Mideast chaos and violence have shown yet again the limitations of American power there. We’re backing and opposing groups in a fluctuating toxic religious, ethnic, tribal and national stew and frequently contradicting ourselves as we do.

Some neo-cons want us to go in with massive military intervention. We tried that. Now consider that the Sunni fanatics called ISIS use American weaponry captured from the Iraqi “army’’ to attack “Iraq’’ -- whatever that is -- an ally of longtime U.S. enemy Iran, which has joined in the melee against ISIS, even as Sunni Saudi Arabia fights its long-time foe and fellow dictatorship Shiite Iran in Yemen. And in Libya and Syria, the civil wars go on and on in permutations and combinations.

The U.S. must occasionally act quickly in the Mideast to rescue its compatriots and to protect the region’s only real democracy – Israel. But after all this time, we should know that the Mideast has so much confusion, fanaticism and corruption that a heavier U.S. role won’t make things better. The best we can do is to marginalize the region as much as possible, such as by reducing the importance of Mideast fossil fuel by turning more to renewable energy in America and Europe, while, yes, fracking for more gas and oil.

We must focus more on Europe, where a scary situation is much clearer. Our Mideast projects have dangerously diverted resources from countering the far greater threat to our interests posed by Vladimir Putin’s mobster Russian regime.

Now that it has seized Crimea from Ukraine and occupied a big slice of the eastern part of that large democracy, Putin’s fascist police state is firing off yet more threats to “protect’’ ethnic Russians in what he calls “The Russian World’’ (i.e., the old Soviet Empire) from bogus “persecution’’ by the majority population in the Baltic States and Poland -- NATO members and democracies. Latvia is coming under particularly hard Russian pressure now. Hitler used the same strategy against Czechoslovakia with the Sudeten Germans. It’s past time to re-energize NATO to thwart Russian aggressio

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Regarding an April 4 New York Times story headlined “No Kids for Me, Thanks’’:

My mysterious father used to say ruefully that “your friends you can pick, your family you’re stuck with.’’ He had five children.

From observing my childless friends, I’d say that contrary to an old social cliché, they are generally happier than those who have children – so far. A simple reason: They have more money, time and freedom to do what they want.

Arthur Stone, a professor of psychiatry at Stony Brook University who’s co-authored a study comparing childless adults’ happiness and those with kids told CNN: “They {parents} have higher highs. They have more joy in their lives, but also they have more stress and negative emotions as well.’’

CNN said he found “little difference" between “the life satisfaction of parents and people without kids, once other factors -- such as income, education, religion and health -- were factored out.’’ Yes, but how do you ‘’factor out’’ income? Paying for children causes a lot of anxiety.

People tend to be more self-absorbed these days, and so less enthusiastic about sacrificing so much for, say, children. But this presents a problem that some childless Baby Boomers are already experiencing: Who will take care of them when they get really old? If they think that younger friends will feel as compelled to squire them through old age as their children, they’re in Fantasyland.

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The California dream of always-green lawns in McMansion developments in the desert is being revised as drought deepens. (Probably global warming.) The land of Silicon Valley, Cal Tech and Hollywood has more than enough intellectual firepower to address the conservation challenge. (“Dehydrated water – just add water’’?) However, don’t expect many new L.A. Basin golf courses. Californians will see more cactus and less lawn. Meanwhile, places with lots of fresh water -- e.g., New England and the Pacific Northwest – may now be in a better competitive position.

Regarding Golden State water-wars, see the movie “Chinatown’’.

Robert Whitcomb  (rwhitcomb51@gmail.com) oversees New England Diary. He's a partner at Cambridge Management Group (cmg625.com), a healthcare-sector consultancy, a  Fellow at the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy, a former finance editor of the International Herald Tribune, a former editorial-page editor and a vice president at The Providence Journal and a former editor at The Wall Street Journal. 

Biden's undiplomatic truth-telling

  I got a chuckle over the rumpus after Vice President Biden noted  that Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have aided  Sunni extremists -- not directly the Islamic State but certainly members of the terrorist community, some of whom are now merrily murdering people  (yes, they clearly enjoy killing) as Islamic State recruits. Saudi Arabia, of course, is the country that brought us al-Qaida.

Of course this was very undiplomatic, as is truth telling in diplomacy generally. And Mr. Biden is a chatterbox.