National News – Connecticut Conservative Party

September 24, 2018

Let’s Change the Debate Formate

Watching the most recent debate between Bob Stefanowski and Ned Lamont the CTMirror reported that there were a “few zingers” but little substance. The audience, although frequently admonished, added to the casual atmosphere that we were attending an entertainment event rather than a political debate, by hooting, whistling, and applauding.

Let’s face it, debates are forums in which each candidate tried to get the best, as the CTMirror puts it, “zingers” and hammer home one point whether it is factual or impactful or not. Stefanowski’s mantra was “taxes” and the inevitability that Lamont, being a Democrat, would raise taxes. On the other hand, Lamont described how his opponent would rip the very textbooks from our children’s hands, take grandma’s life-saving medicine away, and resurrect the long-settled issue of pre-existing conditions. The only problem is that none of it is true. It is basically 90 minutes of what we common folk refer to as bullshit.

Who, “won” the debate? On my scorecard I had Steph by a “nose”. Not that his plan was any better, but he was more comfortable and more entertaining. WRT whose plan was better, neither man provided any useful information which would aid in a responsible voter’s evaluation.

As such, these debates fail to provide useful information, to the contrary, any information that they do provide is misleading or incorrect. In fact, that is a strategy that some pundits teach in debate preparation and which we saw both Stefanowski and Lamont employed.

To wit, if it is your question, you have two minutes. So, you answer the question and then end with a statement about your opponent that you know or should know is untrue. This forces the opponent to exhaust his/her rebuttal time to correct your statement. Check it yourself. (You can see Ned Lamont expertly wield this technique if you go to 37’00” of the debate replay on CT-N). It is done in every political debate.

In addition, as we saw from the 2016 primary and presidential debates. This format is subject to misuse and can be easily corrupted or exploited. We know that Donna Brazil and CNN shared questions with Hillary Clinton to the detriment of poor hapless Bernie Sanders, who still doesn’t know what hit him. Now, these two points should be enough for scrapping the whole idea. However, there is some value in having the opportunity of seeing and hearing the two candidates answering questions side by side,

So, with all that in mind. Here is my idea for a new debate format.

The debates are structured like Hoover Institute’s “Uncommon Knowledge” (check it out on YouTube) and issues are discussed in intimate detail with 2 or 3 interviewers and last 2-2½ hours each.
There may be two or three interviews focusing on biography and education, political values and why these are important, and specific plans and programs which they intend to implement. This will allow a deep dive into the candidate’s plan.
The interviews are done simultaneously, but separately, and without an audience.
The candidate’s writings, advertising, position papers, and resume should be examined in detail by the interviewers who are selected from the public with one left leaning and one right leaning. N.B. that the interviewers are citizens, people from business and industry and not pundits, not reporters, not editors. We want the interview to be as unbiased as possible, and for the questions to be substantive and informative, not “gotchas”.

Here is what I consider the clincher! The interviewers will ask the candidates to provide a metric by which we can evaluate success or failure for each of their initiatives. Something definite and objectively and accurately measurable. Lamont says that he will close the “achievement gap”. How then will that be measured and what is the goal? Steph is going to phase out the personal income tax which will reduce taxes and increase revenue. When and by how much?

The interviews should be edited very basically and uploaded for viewing on CT-N and YouTube as well as TV (Maybe the News12 or WTNH gets a first showing option to recoup some money).

What do you think? I believe that everybody will support except the candidates.

January 16, 2017

MLK – The Great Peacemaker

Disgracing Dr. King’s Message

John Lewis IS the Problem.

And so is Maxine Waters, and Elizabeth Warren and many others, both Republican and Democrat, who have a distorted sense of what their jobs are.

An elected official’s responsibility is to his or her constituents not to his or her party.

How is Lewis’s constituency served by trying to delegitimize the president? How is it served by Lewis, Waters and Warren stating that they will do everything in their power to cause the President of the United States to fail. In that regard, I think that they stand more with President Vlad Putin or Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei than with their constituents.

What is their problem?

They state that the President-Elect is not the President Elect because the Russians hacked the DNC and John Podesta’s email which revealed that the Dem’s candidate had one position that she presented to the public while she actually held a different position. The hacked emails also revealed that John Podesta harbored a deep dislike for Catholics. They revealed widespread collusion between the mainstream media and the DNC. They revealed that the President of the United States lied about not knowing that his Secretary of State was using an unsecured email server. Etcetera. Etcetera. Etcetera.

So, what exactly affected the election? Was it the content of the emails and the secrets that they revealed or was it the fact that it was the Russians that did so? If the hypothetical 400-pound guy in his parent’s basement was the hacker instead of the Russians, would it have made any difference?

If a murderer was found guilty of murder would it make any difference if the eyewitness was a bad guy or a good guy? A Russian or a fat guy? Remember that no one is disputing the accuracy of the hacked emails. Should the murderer be declared innocent because the evidence, although accurate, was supplied by a bad guy?

Mr. Lewis, in a time when our nation faces so many problems. The increase in crime, in poverty, in joblessness which occurred over the last decade. The decline in race relations. The exacerbated problems in the Middle East which threaten the safety of our homeland. Is it really time to continue the divisiveness and hatred?

January 14, 2017January 14, 2017

Remember When the DOJ Went After Bad Guys?

Loretta Lynch – Police Are The Problem

Loretta Lynch issued a 164-page report villainizing the second largest police department in the country. Patterns of racist, abuse, excessive force were all there. The report took 13 months to assemble and research, however, the research was apparently limited since many high officials in the department were never contacted.

Nevertheless, the report fits snugly into the Obama administration’s narrative that the police are the problem and that police departments are institutionally racist. .

Except for the numerous anecdotal, it was quite predictable for both the SJWs and the supporters of the police. It was pretty much what everyone expected that it would say as Lynch’s Department of Justice, like Holder’s before her, seems to place a high priority on “getting” police departments.

Chicago’s mayor, Rahm Emanuel, a close friend, and former Obama Chief of Staff, promised cooperation with the Department.

Although the report detailed page after page of scathing indictments of the police, Lynch praised the city officials who “worked hard and thoughtfully” on reforms.

Over the last decade, it seems that agencies of government have become like the mainstream media and simple “echo chambers” of the executive department’s narrative. The agent’s do their jobs and the Director spins the results to suit the White House and to fit the storyline.

Consider George Tenet’s strong pitch to President Bush for the existence of WMDs in Iraq and the spin that convinced most of congress to concur with the necessity to invade. Later, when Colin Powell presented the information to the United Nations it hardly seemed convincing. Similarly, Director Comey went on for 30 minutes laying out a cogent case for convicting Hilary Clinton and then delivering his decision that he would not prosecute like a punch line. Who, in their right minds would believe that Lois Lerner’s computer broke and she lost all her emails and that there were no backups.

It seems that the Administration’s boast that the passage of Obamacare depended on the “stupidity of the American people” can be applied to most of the governmental agencies.

January 13, 2017

GrabYourWallet’s Targeting of Individuals Changes The Game

Here we go again. All the fears that the left tried to instill in voters during the two years preceding the election are coming true. However, instead of enraged Trump voters using Gestapo tactics in the street, rioting, beating up opponents, destroying property, pledging sabotage and disruption of inaugural events it is the left that is doing the exact same thing that they said Trump voters would do if the situation was reversed.

Now, because one board member of L.L. Bean made a contribution of $5,000 to a PAC supporting Trump the far-left lunatic-fringe website www.grabyourwallet.org is urging the boycott of the Maine company. Ms. Bean, the granddaughter of the founder, defended her right to make her own decision on whom to support in the election, and emphasized that she is a private citizen and made this contribution on her own behalf and the donation was not from the Company.

The radical organization’s attempt to terrify and shakedown a private citizen represents a departure from the position of many activist organization who target companies with whom they disagree with on political positions rather than individuals. GrabYourWallet has expanded that to include targeting of private citizens and although I have no statistical evidence, it is reasonable to expect that if an organization targets individuals who voted or contributed to candidates with whose political views they did not agree, they would probably be boycotting nearly every US-based company of any size. I’ll wager Ben and Jerry’s has a director or an officer who did not vote for HRC.

I just bought three shirts and a pair of boots from L.L. Bean, something that I have never done before. I did this to support Ms. Bean and the hard-working Americans at L.L. Bean. At the Conservative Party of Connecticut we do not participate in boycotts, we believe in free-markets and freedom of speech and respect everyone’s right to their opinion. I even ate Kellogg’s Fruit Loops for breakfast although I think Kellogg’s opposition to freedom of speech and support for hate groups is despicable. Nevertheless, it is their money and they can do what they want with it. In contrast, I urge all our members, supporters and non-supporters to support the right of individuals to express their opinion without fear that organizations will attempt to punish the financially regardless of the collateral damage done. Meaning that targeting a company just because a member of their board holds political opinion harms workers and shareholders regardless of their own politics.

Buy something from L.L. Bean this weekend. Let’s make this a very good sales weekend for them.

The Conservative Party of Connecticut has requested that GrabYourWallet provide an explanation for this bizarre action.

December 25, 2016December 25, 2016

Obama’s Final Betrayal

By Nick Malino

Barack Obama had the chance to slap Israel in the face once more before he leaves office. I guess he couldn’t resist it. In a startling reversal of decades of diplomacy, Obama sided with the Arab nations and its Palestinian component and tacitly condemned Israeli settlement activity, “on Palestinian land”. Perhaps this act provided the president with additional cruel satisfaction since he was able to deliver this diplomatic fist to Bibi’s gut on Hanukah eve.

Obama has displayed a lasting disdain for Israel and has thrice snubbed Prime Minister Netanyahu during his last three visits to this country. But personal feelings against Jews, Israel and the PM should not affect our country’s relationship with its closest, and perhaps only, ally in the Middle East, and NO. I am not including Iran as an ally even though Mr. Obama considers them, “Our partner in peace.”

December 24, 2016January 11, 2017

Obama’s Legacy – Donald Trump

Last night, in his farewell address in Chicago, President Obama attempted to salvage something positive in his legacy. Although his audience consisted of hardcore supporters, he may have been better served by not selecting the city which has suffered most from his failed policies.. He pushed through Obamacare which most people were against. He went on an apology tour stopping in Hiroshima and Vietnam. After every terrorist attack, rather than lashing out at the terrorist or even labelling their ideology correctly, he lectured Americans about tolerance, he invited the racist hate group Black Lives Matter to the White House three times, he preached unity but practiced divisiveness, he sent representatives to the funeral of Michael Brown but was absent at funerals for slain police officers, he said he understood Colin Kapernick’s opinion that we are a country of racists.

Americans have responded by saying, “We are tired of being told that we should be ashamed of who we are”. We are not racists, we are not miserly capitalists, we do not hate gays, or Muslims or transsexuals. While the affliction of racism certainly exists, it affects people of every race and it is revealed as localized outbreaks and not as a pandemic. Barack Obama does not exist on a higher plain than the rest of us, “Just-Plain-Folks” regardless of what he thinks of himself, his legacy will be best exemplified by the election of Donald Trump.

Despite Obama’s energetic campaigning for Clinton in the final weeks of the election, it is he who set the table for Donald Trump’s victory.

Obama reprimanded Congress for their inaction on gun control and said that if they didn’t do something, he would. Then he reprimanded the Congress that if they did not act on comprehensive immigration reform, then he would. Well, Mr. President, that is not the way it works. Congress passes the laws. The SCOTUS determines their constitutionality, and the President is supposed to enforce those laws.

The president has absolutely no ability to enact laws. You and I have just as much ability to enact new legislation as president Obama has. However, this did not stop him. However, he did it anyway. He claims to have plugged the “gun show loophole”. He passed a law via executive order which is not permissible under the constitution. Fortunately, it was a useless law since there really was no “gun show loophole”, so everybody just kind of let it go.

Then, also by executive order, he granted amnesty to millions of illegal border crossers into the country, thereby reneging on his oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States. If he didn’t agree with a law duly passed by Congress and authorized by the Judicial Branch, he would ignore it via executive order. Well, Mr. President, that too, is not the way it works.

The Supreme Court concurred and he was told that he could not flaunt the law, ignore the constitution, and step back on his oath of office. The frightening part was that although the SCOTUS struck down the President’s action, they did it by a margin of 5-4, meaning that 4 justices no longer believed in the constitutional separation of powers.

Hillary Clinton was a flawed candidate. But she had the backing of her party which kept thumbs firmly pressed upon the scales in her favor. Bernie Sanders, the poor, doddering socialist never had a chance and to this day and he still doesn’t accept that reality. She had Wall Street behind her. Hollywood stars fell all over each other to garner her favor. Every greedy union, the Aristocracy of Labor, backed her with their strong-arms and strongarms. Print, broadcast and internet media, with rare exceptions, demonized anyone who would dare criticize her.

We were told by all of them that if we did not agree with these “gods”, we were uneducated hobbits, or gnomes, rednecks, racists, Islamophobes, homophobes, misogynists, and much worse.

We are none of those.

And finally, a couple of days before the election, Obama told us that if we did not vote for Hillary that it can only be that we were also sexists. This may not have been quite as bad as Margaret Thatcher who literally condemned all who did not vote for HRC to eternal damnation, but to many it was just another over the top elitist telling us again how bad we were.

“For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction” and when the force being exerted from the left surpasses good sense and enters the realm of extremism the opposite reaction is about to occur to a similar extreme. It is the law of fundamental symmetries. Donald Trump is not a alter ego of the alt-right it is a response to leftist extremism. It is one thing being told that the federal government knows more about educating your kids than the states do and certainly more than you do but to be told that you must allow boys who say that they identify as girls into the girl’s bathrooms and showers and you get Donald Trump. And when you focus more on these perceived inequalities while working people are out of work you get Donald Trump.
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Mr. Obama. We are not ashamed of being Americans. We don’t need anyone to offer apologies for what we have done, because the good outweighs the bad. Mrs. Clinton, we are hard-working people not deplorables, Mrs. Thatcher, mind your own business.

I never was what you would call, a “Trump Supporter”. I am not confident that the next four years are going to be without troubles, and already have visions of Smoot-Harley-type fallout from disasterous trade wars. But the alternative was far worse, and in the end, there were only a few people that could make me cast my vote for a reality show host for president, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are two of them and Chuck Schumer, Dannell Malloy, Shaun White, Meryl Streep, Christopher Murphy, Elizabeth Warren, Al Sharpton, and Charlie Rangle are not far behind and Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will be gone in a few weeks . It is time to get rid of the others and restore some reason and common sense to government before we get someone worse than Trump.

December 23, 2016December 23, 2016

Connecticut School Funding – Whimsical But Not Unequal

Judge Thomas Moukawsher says the states funding mechanism is irrational and the state thereby failed to fulfill its mandate to thousands of schoolchildren across the state, and that the state spends this money “whimsically”, and its funding formula “irrational”, Unfortunately, this Judge’s decision can be described by those same two adjectives, and reflects a very basis failure to understand the problem, and not just this problem but the very basic fundamentals of any decision-making process. It seems that the decision was arrived at by looking at test scores and making the assumption that the only variable is that affects these scores is financial, while neglecting the fact that there are other variables which contribute to the quality of the outcomes.

Numerous variables affect testing outcomes and the quality of the education that they measure. The
sensitivity and responsiveness of the receptors (in this case, the students, the quality of support
network outside of the school and the environment in which the receptors exist just to name a few
should not be ignored. And to do so indicates a thoughtless dereliction of judicial responsibility and a
disservice to the children, exactly the accusations Moukawsher lodges against the State.
The poorest school districts are already by funded the state far in excess of the more affluent
districts, and in terms of absolute fiscal expenditures
more is spent in these poorly-performing
schools/students than some of the highest performing
schools/students. And note that Connecticut’s
schools are consistently ranking in the top five state
school districts in the country.
In school districts in which there is high
unemployment, frequent shootings, ubiquitous drug
presence, and in which, nearly 70% of the children
are living in single-family homes, the students
perform poorly. Correlations do exist but not between
performance and the amount of financing. I believe
that the judge and our legislature are failing to
understand that this is not a financial problem, or at
least a financial problem that will be solved by hiring
more teachers and adding more facilities. The school
budget is not the issue. This is another example of
shortsightedness resulting in the misapplication of limited resources that is so characteristic of our
state and federal government.
The entire argument that has been misrepresented by the
judge and by most news outlets has been that wealthier
school districts are being subsidized at the expense of
poorer school districts. Even to extent of one commenter
stating that this is “another example of the rich screwing
the poor.” This should be evident from the first table but
just in case further clarification is necessary, the second
table represents the amount that the State and the federal
government is actually subsidizing these communities. The
CTPost says that the system has been “inequitable for
decades”. However, while the formula for funding does not
seem to be founded on a sound basis, it is not inequitable
or at least there is no evidence, statistical or otherwise to
make that conclusion. And, to further imply, as the CTPost seems to do, that there is a racial basis
for these fanciful inequities is unfortunately typical of misplaced perceptions from the President on
down.
Facts don’t lie but they certainly can be misleading especially if not presented in context or not
presented completely. For example, the State initially responded, and I think correctly, that there is
no evidence that additional funding would have any impact on the ameliorating the differences in
school/student performance among school districts. Consider the following table.
Correlation is a statistical measure of
interdependence or how two or more variables are
related and how they behave in relation to each
other. Correlation can be positive (i.e. if one moves
up, the other moves up) or negative (if one moves
up the other moves down). Correlation ranges from
+1 (a perfect positive correlation) to -1 (a perfect negative correlation). Thus, zero indicates no
correlation. Based on the limited data in the tables above, there is an extremely high correlation
between income and good school performance as well as with the amount of local funding. That is to
say, when the parents pay, the students perform. However, when the state pays there is a high
negative correlation. This indicates that the greater the state funding – the poorer students
perform. State funding goes up performance goes down. The relationship between overall funding
and performance is fairly weak.
Now, the first thing that one learns in the study of statistics and the thing that is drilled in constantly
as one progresses in the field of statistics is, “correlation does not equal causation.” But what this
data suggest is simply as stated above that there are other factors that influence a school’s
performance and it is foolish to think that additional funding is going to have any positive impact.
One thing that is shown in other unrelated studies is that there is a relationship between the price
paid for something and its perceived value. Things that are received gratis are perceived as being
less valuable even if the two things are exactly equal. When people pay for something, as in the
case of the better-performing schools it achieved higher perceived value, when the state pays and
the beneficiary doesn’t, then, the value is diminished.
But an important point to make here is that, the government, whether it be state or federal, doesn’t
give anyone anything. The government only takes. The state generates no revenue, it provides
nothing of value, it simply takes money from its individual constituents and buys things that those
constituents may or may not want or need, and redistributes those things. Sadly, it does so in an
inefficient, ineffective and self-serving manner, principally as a result of the same concept of
associating value with price. The government expends no level of effort, it exists solely as a result of
the value of the labors and toil of others, and the same concept holds. That which was not paid for
as a result of my labor is of diminished value.
I can go on, but; the point here is that throwing more money at a problem in the absence of any
evidence that such action will produce improved outcomes is foolish, to do so in disregard to
compelling evidence to the contrary is reckless, and; to ignore impact of any other variable is
ignorant, in the original meaning of the word i.e. “to ignore”.