I’ve put the senescent computer on life support, so the poor old thing is holding on and doing its thing like a trooper. But as I transfer its files and responsibilities to a new Windows 11 desktop machine, you may not receive a direct link to the Daily Disquisition in your email until I learn how to use and fiddle with (if not master) all the new crap.

So if you don’t get the daily link, please go to LitchfieldMonitor.com every day and click on the title of the Daily Disquisition. It’ll be here . . .

10 September—It appears that Bob Stefanowski’s campaign to dump Ned Lamont from the Connecticut gubernatorial throne is doing rather better than I had thought. Because King Ned’s menacing minions have taken to hypercritical and hypocritical sniping. Just like Bob’s, truth be told. And, as usual, most of it is over taxes. Because lots of—if not most—voters tend to vote their pocket books when nobody’s looking.

Believe it or not, so-called progressives don’t like paying taxes to finance all the crap they inflict on the rest of us any more than reactionaries and other conservatives—even the alleged good stuff. Taxes certainly are a necessary nuisance to support society and the nuisance part makes them powerful pawns in the game of politics. Especially when tax legislation and administration are so flexible and easily manipulated for political advantage.

Now that Stefanowski has released all the tax crap he had promised to provide “ethically and legally,” Lamont’s faithful flunkies are nevertheless accusing him of breaking his transparency promise by not revealing the list of his consulting firm’s clients. Sure, just for the fun of it, we’d all like to know just whom Stefanowski does his “merger & acquisition and due diligence support, corporate strategy, and other general consulting services” for. But the reasonable among us understand and respect client confidentiality.

And, contrary to what the Lamontables are implying, there’s no way Bob Stefanowski, should he prevail in November, would even dream of putting his hard-won governorship in jeopardy by allowing conflicts of interest to taint it or him.

On the other hand, King Ned’s consort, Queen Ann Lamont, is a successful venture capitalist who files a separate tax return from her husband’s. So the great unwashed have no idea of her share of the family income. Not that it’s any of their business, mind you, any more than King Ned’s or Bob or Amy Stefanowski’s.

I’d like to report what many working wives preach and practice, that in the American tradition, when a typical couple both bring in income, what he brings in is theirs, what she brings in is hers. But I won’t.

We should be concerned with potential conflicts of interest, however. It appeared to the world that Ned Lamont had more than one conflict of interest through Ann’s venture capitalism. But not long after Ned became governor, the Office of State Ethics, in Advisory Opinion 2019-2, thought otherwise: “We conclude that the steps taken by Governor Lamont and Mrs. Lamont concerning their financial assets and associated businesses, as set forth in this opinion, are adequate to better ensure compliance with the Code, particularly its conflict-of-interests provisions and disclosure requirements.”

I have no doubt that, assuming the Office of State Ethics is ethical, it will conclude similarly about about Bob and Amy Stefanowski. Now all Bob has to do is show us how he filled out the notorious 2018 NRA questionnaire and tell Donald Trump to go to hell . . .