13 June—The good news is that Section 702 of the unconstitutional Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) has lapsed, at least for the time being, thanks to typically partisan goings on in Congress and Donald Trump’s typically weaponized appointment of a typically unqualified but typically (and unquestionably) loyal flunky to be his top intelligence official, overseeing some 18 intelligence and security agencies, most of which nobody has ever heard of. That’s our government.
FISA’s stated purpose has been to provide the legal framework and procedures for government agencies including but not limited to the FBI, NSA, and CIA to conduct electronic and physical surveillance of foreign entities within the United States—for national security purposes, of course. It was enacted during the Carter administration in 1978 and amended—mostly expanded—several times, including in 2008, during the Bush 43 administration, when Section 702 was added, allowing the warrantless surveillance of foreign entities—targets—overseas.
FISA Section 702 is supposed to only target foreigners located outside the United States who are thought to possess, receive, or communicate foreign intelligence information. No problem there, to be sure, because nobody gives a damn about foreigners. But since communications of U.S. citizens at home and abroad with targeted foreigners wherever they may be could possibly be gathered incidentally, thus violating their rights, a serious constitutional question arises. Remember, the 702 vacuum cleaner sucks up information without a warrant and the Fourth Amendment hasn’t been repealed. Yet.
But most of FISA is constitutionally questionable, not just Section 702. Because for starters the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), which may issue warrants where U.S. citizens are known to be involved, and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review (FISCR, the appellate court), which may hear appeals of those warrants, operate almost entirely in secret. Moreover, while it’s known that the FISC and FISCR courts are located in the E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse in D.C., their exact locations are kept secret and under tight security.
Worse yet, the FISC hearings are ex parte, meaning in this case that only federal government lawyers are present and allowed to argue the fed’s side of any case. The entities of interest—the targets of proposed surveillance—are not represented and aren’t even informed they’re in the fed’s crosshairs. Worst yet, if you get served with a FISA warrant or subpoena, you’re not allowed to talk about it; and even your lawyer may be required to have obtained security clearance. Unconstitutional FISC gag orders and involuntary non-disclosure agreements make it a federal crime even to tell your priest about the existence of the warrant or the investigation. That’s our government.
Is violating the Constitution in the cause of alleged national security justified? It may well be. But do you trust your government? And, it must be said, it’s not just Donald Trump’s administration that doesn’t deserve to be trusted.
And that takes us to the other good news today: By the time you read this, thanks to two decisions by a D.C. district judge and one decision by a D.C. circuit trio, the portico façade of the The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts will have shed the ignominious name of Donald J. Trump. The per curiam circuit decision by two Obama appointees and one Trump appointee had no noted dissent.
It’s sad that since the advent of Trump we should deem it necessary—or even worthwhile—to note the presidents who appointed judges . . .
12 June—It’s most gratifying to report that Donald Trump’s popularity has plummeted to the lowest level ever, with nearly twice as many Americans disapproving of his job performance (and of him personally, as there’s a very strong correlation) as approving. At least during either of his reigns of error and terror—and who cares about when he was just a big-time con man before he was enabled by stupid Democrats, the flawed electoral process, and the Supreme Court to inflict his self-dealing maleficence and corruption on the nation.
Not that Trump gives a damn, of course. Tyrants just don’t care about popularity ratings. Not that it matters, but Gallup’s last poll on Trump’s approval rating, from December 2025, was pretty close to the current post-Gallup numbers. You’ll recall that Gallup, once probably the most respected and cited of polling organizations, appears to have been bullied into ending its 88-year poll of presidential ratings; and the one in December was the last. It wouldn’t be at all surprising were Gallup to resume presidential ratings when Trump disappears in one way or another.
Trump’s self-dealing and corruption bring to mind the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) show on the White House’s South Lawn to celebrate the big bugger’s 80th birthday on Sunday. Trump and his flunkies claim it’s to celebrate the nation’s semiquincentennial—touted as Freedom 250—but we know better. Because everything’s about Trump.
The late Senator John McCain called UFC “human cockfighting” back in the nineties, when it was new and banned in 36 states. Evidently the mixed martial art, an entertaining sport or sporting entertainment (like all sports these days), has been toned down so that’s no longer as much fun to watch.
The $60 million-plus cost of putting up and taking down the octagon—the 30-foot eight-sided cage in which the mixed martial artists ultimately fight and the 4,000-seat grandstand from which the audience cries for blood—and restoring the grass is allegedly being picked up entirely by the UFC corporate people.
Admission to the UFC performance is said to be by invitation only, to Trump lackeys and military personnel. But allegedly free tickets have allegedly been made available to groundlings (i.e., the great unwashed) to watch the show on big screens at the Ellipse. And, typically of anything involving Donald Trump, so-called VIP packages are reportedly selling for $1.5 million.
You wonder who gets the gate. Because according to a (surprising, for a number of reasons) financial disclosure, a couple of months ago Donald Trump bought somewhere between $15,000 and $50,000 worth of shares in the relevant UFC holding company, which is publicly traded. Fifty thou is bupkes, of course, so believe that Trump and his evil spawn must have bought a lot more. And, as you’d expect, Trump has licensed his name and image to a line of “UFC Freedom 250” collectibles. But, lest you worry, Trump’s maladministration isn’t involved. Officially, anyway.
God save us . . .
11 June—When Donald Trump was pandering for votes in 2024, he bloviated, “Starting on day one, we will end inflation and make America affordable again, to bring down the prices of all goods.” He repeated the patently feculent promise on any number of occasions. And even though he was clearly lying through his effulgent teeth—as campaigning politicians can’t help doing—any number of the gullible unwashed obviously (and predictably) took him at his word.
So after Trump’s Bureau of Labor Statistics released a report yesterday showing that inflation in the United States hit a three-year high of 4.2 percent, he boasted, “You know what I really love? I love the inflation. The numbers were great.” (Behind the scenes, will BOLS heads roll for not having made the numbers great for Trump?)
Of course, Trump didn’t really mean what he said yesterday. (Yeah, yeah, why should it have been different from what he says any day?) As a con man, demagogue, and politician he shouldn’t be expected to mean what he says. Ever.
Still, Trump later insisted that his bullshit was taken out of context. “I love the inflation numbers because of what I’m talking about,” Trump insisted. “The numbers are going to be phenomenal because what’s showing is that despite the fact that we’re in a war, the numbers are much lower than anticipated, and when we’re out of that war, the numbers will be at lower numbers than they were even before it started.”
Much lower than anticipated? Well, not all that much higher than anticipated, anyway. Because in truth, economists had anticipated inflation to jump from 2.4 percent to around 3.3 percent when Trump decided to join Israel’s not unjustified fray without the consent of Congress—on top of the 0.7 percent jump anticipated from Trump’s tariffs.
Of course, Trump expects inflation to “come down like a rock” once his undeclared and illegal war ends. And that was parroted in fancier language by White House flunkies who insisted that the administration is focused on an affordability agenda and expects energy prices to plummet once regional stability is restored.
On the other hand, don’t forget that inflation had soared to 9.1 percent in 2022, up from a not undesirable 1.4 percent when Joe Biden took office in 2021. The astronomical—for the United States—inflation occurred during the height of the COVID panic, to be sure, and there certainly were things beyond control of the Biden maladministration, like supply-chain issues. But, all things considered, Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act was a deceptively named failure. Like Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill . . .
10 June—On the 197th anniversary of the first of 170 Oxford-Cambridge boat races (which Oxford won and don’t ask), let’s give 50th Connecticut House district Republican candidate Jadon MacCormack his due, even though he’s never rowed for nor probably even visited either university in his 23 years.
First, Connecticut underwent its most recent statewide gerrymander, euphemized as redistricting, in 2021, which, however, doesn’t mean all that much in the circumstance. For the record, though, the 50th House district in the aptly named Quiet Corner has been rather malleable; at the moment it comprises the quiet towns or gerrymandered parts of Ashford, Brooklyn, Woodstock, Eastford, Hampton, and Pomfret. Part of Mansfield also is in the 50th, but not Storrs, the village in Mansfield that’s home to UConn’s main campus, best known for its other-than-quiet parties.
Also for the record, as far as is known, Jadon MacCormack has never attended UConn or any other university. Evidently he’s been too busy.
The 50th House regularly switches CGA party affiliation from Republican to Democrat and has been represented by Democrat Pat Boyd (a school administrator only a year shy of twice Jadon’s age, damn kids) since 2017. Pat ran unopposed in 2020 and 2024 and was running unopposed this year until Jadon snatched the GOP nomination unopposed. Easy move. Good move for an aspiring pol. But not acceptable to Connecticut Republicans.
So Connecticut Republicans in their infinite hypocritical wokeness easily collected about 100 signatures more than the 238 required to get a less unwoke candidate than Jadon to challenge him in an August party primary. Totally wasted effort, to be sure, typical of Connecticut Republicans. Because Jadon was bound to lose to Pat anyway and the good-soldier candidate the hypocrites have been able to comb out of the woodwork, who will probably win the primary, is also bound to lose the general to Pat.
But at least Connecticut Republicans will have kept up the appearance of keeping up appearances.
Back to Jadon MacCormack, then, when you bother to go to his website, jadonforthe50th.com, you see that the kid, who looks like a yeshiva student on furlough, is a conventional political candidate with vague plans and promises. What you don’t see on Jadon’s website is this:
And it’s Jadon’s blatantly, unashamedly anti-gay rhetoric which would impress bigoted warlord Pete Hegseth that has given Connecticut Republicans apoplexy. God forbid they should be shown to be what they are. And Jadon’s ad doesn’t say it all. Last week, Jadon declared on a conservative AM radio program (is there anything else on AM radio?): “If you’re a sodomite, you should get the death penalty. Simple as that.” Repeat: “If you’re a sodomite, you should get the death penalty.” Is that straight talk or is that straight talk? Sodomite? You hope that Jadon is yanking someone’s chain.
Before you condemn Jadon, though, consider where he’s coming from. He really is a published author. Of “Pastor Steven L. Anderson: The Life, Ministry, and Legacy of a Soul Winner,” a blatantly hagiographic biography of a Fundamental Baptist preacher half a year younger than Pat Boyd, damn kids, published by Amazon digitally and in paper on demand. (Brings to mind “The Works of Max Beerbohm,” published in 1896 when Max was 24, ending with “Cede junioribus,” “Yield to the younger.”) This is what the Amazon blurb tells us about Jadon:
“Jadon MacCormack is a passionate soul-winner, KJV-only Christian, gospel singer, and devoted servant of Christ from Connecticut. Proclaiming salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone, he urges believers to fulfill the Great Commission [JC’s final instruction to his followers] with urgency and joy.”
So it turns out that Jadon MacCormack is a fundamentalist, in other words a Christian Taliban. So he can’t help himself—even though Jesus surely wouldn’t approve. But to his credit, Jadon is a KJV-only Christian, for whom it’s the King James Version or bust. And he’s got a winning point there, because there is only one real, authentic, genuine version of the Bible. So nobody is totally imperfect.
Now you can condemn Jadon . . .
9 June—Reports about Donald Trump’s reception when his real-time image appeared on the jumbotron at the NBA tournament game at Madison Square Garden last night all mention the intensity of the booing: “thunderous booing,” “thunderously booed,” “booed loud and long” are common descriptions. Even faithfully Trumpian Fox News, reporting the “massive reaction,” admitted, “While there was some cheering as Trump saluted the crowd from his suite, the boos from those in attendance rang louder before the video panned back to NYPD officers holding flags on the court.”
The crowd’s shouts of “U-S-A! U-S-A!” as Avery Wilson absolutely mangled the national anthem (as, sad to say, is all too common these days) gave way to boos and probably raspberries as Trump’s glorious image in a Benny Hill-style military salute filled the giant screens. He followed up with the customary dictator’s fist salute.
After the game, of course, Trump relished the ear-splitting volume of the reception but put his typically and predictably self-serving narcissistic spin on it: “It was, I think, mostly cheers. It was loud, and it was very enthusiastic.” That’s been his reaction to negative reception at other sporting events, too, such as the U.S. Open at Arthur Ashe Stadium, where his smirk only amplified the crowd’s jeers. Way to go, Donald, sound positive, act negative. And who cares anyway?
But in Trump’s defense (kind of), consider the people who reacted massively and negatively last night. Those presumably wealthy masochistic schmucks paid a minimum of close to $4,000—even after the last-minute 50-percent scalper reduction, mind you—for the lousiest so-called “nosebleed” seats in the house and went through all manner of security crap just to get in to the virtual fortress. So who can take them seriously?
What a bloody waste of money! But that can be said of sports and other entertainment tickets in general. And you can’t blame inflation . . .
8 June—The big news today is that Paul Mordecai Rosenberg Jnr was among the top ten percent of almost 2,000 escapees from Alcatraz yesterday, just over 1,500 of whom were able to complete the triathlon. Hearty congratulations are in order. But it remains the contention of the Litchfield Monitor that exercise is a shortcut to the cemetery.
The mention of Alcatraz naturally brings Donald Trump to mind. Of course. Not, however, because of his typically ridiculous plan to rebuild and reopen the derelict tourist-attraction and national landmark slammer on the rock as a maximum-security federal prison for what he calls “America’s most ruthless and violent offenders,” at a cost to taxpayers of at least $2 billion.
For the record, Alcatraz hasn’t housed an inmate for six decades and, rather surprisingly, the Republican-majority House of Representatives hasn’t started the ball rolling to give Trump a paltry $152 million to kick-start the totally superfluous boondoggle. Yet. But of course that hasn’t foreclosed Trump’s premature Alcatraz ejaculation, and he’s already had flunkies doing engineering assessments and logistics evaluations.
One of the attractions for Trump in restoring Alcatraz to its former use is that he’d really piss off all the California and San Francisco pols of what he calls—not entirely with justification, mind you—the “radical left,” among other things. Weaponization. Revenge politics. Trump.
So Alcratraz brings Donald Trump to mind because he’s a ruthless—if not, as far as we know, a particularly violent (in his dotage, anyway)—offender. And he should have been put behind bars long before he entered politics, not just after his first reign of terror.
Coincidentally, it’s the aftermath of Trump’s first reign of terror that takes us back to today. Because it was on 8 June 2023 that Donald Trump became the first former United States president to be indicted on federal criminal charges. Remember that wonderful day? A grand jury in Miami indicted him on 37 felony counts—we’re supposed to say alleged, but won’t—involving the mishandling of classified documents. Joy and hope reigned.
Trump had to get reelected to beat the rap and resume his arrogant, self-dealing abuse of power. And the witless Democrats did everything they could to help him.
And now a confession in the interest of full disclosure. Evidently I’ve been made a sustaining member of the Republican National Committee. Again. Without my permission. Again. Of course, the RNC wants to be paid for the insult but won’t be. Again. Yet the schmucks persist. And to rub it in they send me a non-transferable membership card with a picture of some unidentified smug old bastard on the front . . .
7 June—On this day in 1862 William Bruce Mumford became the first, last, and—to date—only person executed for treason against the United States. (The Taos Revolt treason executions weren’t really for treason because the executed insurgents were technically Mexican rather than American. John Brown was hanged for treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia. And the Rosenbergs were fried for conspiracy to commit espionage.)
So poor Mumford was a native North Carolinian and pre-Civil War U.S. Army veteran living in New Orleans who didn’t own slaves probably because he couldn’t afford to keep them, being a well-known albeit unlucky and/or unskilled gambler. He was hanged after being tried and convicted by a U.S. military court in occupied New Orleans (which had been captured from the Confederacy only that May and remained in Federal hands for the remainder of the Civil War) for—incredibly—simply tearing down a U.S. flag and wearing a piece of it—even though there was no attempt by the kangaroo military court to determine whether New Orleans had actually been occupied when Mumford tore down the flag. (Robert E. Lee demanded that Union General Henry Halleck explain how an execution could have occurred for a crime committed before New Orleans was occupied but didn’t get a satisfactory explanation. Of course.)
Major General Benjamin “Beast” Butler, commander of the Union ground forces, issued this special order:
“William B. Mumford, a citizen of New Orleans, having been convicted before a military commission of treason and an overt act thereof, tearing down the United States flag from a public building of the United States [the New Orleans Mint, which closed in 1911], after said flag was placed there [on 26 May] by Commodore Farragut, of the United States Navy: It is ordered that he be executed according to sentence of said military commission on Saturday, June 7, inst., between the hours of 8 a.m. and 12 a.m. under the directions of the provost-marshal of the District of New Orleans, and for so doing this shall be his sufficient warrant.”
So just before noon on 7 June, Mumford was hanged in the courtyard of the mint itself, a place that Gen. Butler had decided, “according to the Spanish custom,” would be the ideal place. Quite a crowd attended the execution and Mumford spoke of his patriotism for the Confederacy and his love for what he considered the true meaning of the U.S. flag, a symbol he had fought for under in the Seminole Wars and the Mexican–American War.
Martyred as he was, William Bruce Mumford is considered a hero especially in Dixie. We’d go along with that. And Butler, evidently experiencing some guilt pangs, during his one term in the U.S. House of Representatives, helped Mumford’s widow find a job in Washington. And who knows how else? Butler went on to serve a year as governor of Massachusetts.
And it must be noted that during the 6 January 2021 Capitol riot insurrectionists tore down American flags, including one they made a point of throwing to the ground and replacing with a Trump campaign flag. The penalty for those acts of treason? “Full, complete and unconditional pardon.”
Bottom line: A flag—any flag—is nothing but a symbol and doing anything at all with one should in no way be construed as treason or anything like it. In 1989 and 1990 the U.S. Supreme Court essentially agreed, if only by a one-vote majority. And if the current SCOTUS malignant majority should get its maleficent hands on it, the First Amendment is out of luck . . .
6 June—Last month, as everybody in the universe knows, Donald Trump settled his typically Trumpish—i.e., predictably unjustified, totally unprincipled, thoroughly vexatious—$10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury Department, which, had it not been aborted, likely would have been dismissed with prejudice by any federal judge not appointed by Trump (of whom there are 12 of the 18 in the Southern District of Florida, where the suit was filed), for the leak of his tax records, which he was supposed to have released himself.
The ludicrous settlement Trump essentially made with himself, with the enthusiastic complicity of Todd Blanche, his former privately retained personal shyster and currently taxpayer-retained personal shyster-cum-hit man masquerading as acting attorney general and Librarian of Congress, involved no obvious financial payouts to Trump, his family, or his and their various businesses and other grifts.
All Trump, his family, and his and their various businesses and other grifts got out of the ludicrous settlement is what amounts to a preemptive pardon—tax audit immunity, permanently barring the federal government from pursuing claims, conducting examinations, and/or auditing any tax returns filed before the settlement date. That’s all. It may be worth $100 million or so, conservatively, but that’s all Trump, his family, and his and their various businesses and other grifts got out of the settlement. Bupkes, to be sure, but, in all events, when you’re suing yourself, it’s nice to have both sides cooperating.
In addition to the preemptive pardon and Trump’s apology to himself, the only money overtly involved in the ludicrous settlement was in the addendum, a $1.776 billion typically Trumpish “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” administered by his personal shyster to compensate convicted insurrectionists and other criminals loyal to Trump. That’s what has been called by Democrats and Republicans alike “the slush fund.”
The ludicrous settlement has not been approved by any court. In fact, it was never even submitted to a judge for approval. It appears, rather, that Trump’s shysters on both sides of his case against himself did an end-run around court involvement by filing a Notice of Voluntary Dismissal with Prejudice on 18 May. When you’re suing yourself, it’s nice to have both sides cooperating.
As it happens, though, the federal judge who had been randomly assigned President Donald J. Trump v. Internal Revenue Service (1:26-cv-20609), Kathleen M. Williams, is an Obama appointee and therefore can be trusted to rule on law rather than loyalty or gratitude. So she has reopened the ludicrously dismissed case, ordering Trump’s shysters (on which side?) to respond to allegations that the lawsuit was actually a pretext to force a settlement out of court. Law rather than loyalty or gratitude.
We’ll see what happens with that when (if) a panel of two or three of the six active appellate judges (of 12 on the banc), appointed by Trump in the Eleventh Circuit gets the case. (If the case should go en banc and get a six-six decision, the ruling of the district court will be affirmed.)
In the meantime, giving credit where it’s due, it was rather clever of Trump’s shysters to come up with the criminal “weaponization” slush fund as a red herring, a decoy, a ruse to draw the attention and fire of virtually everybody so that relatively little attention and fire has been aimed at the real purpose of the ludicrous settlement—the preemptive pardon for Trump, his family, his and their various businesses and other grifts . . .
5 June—We can’t help but be disappointed in John Bolton, who just copped a plea for mishandling classified documents. As a former national security advisor—even Donald Trump’s and not for very long—he certainly should have known better than to share classified information with his wife and daughter (or anyone else), who evidently were helping him with his 2020 memoir. Evidently complacency, ego, and arrogance got the better of him. He of all people should have had the smarts to not leave a paper or digital trail.
Presumably the profits from Bolton’s best-selling memoir, “The Room Where It Happened,” for which Simon & Schuster gave him a $2 million advance as well as undisclosed royalties which likely have doubled that, will go to pay his $2.25 million fine. Despite pressure Trump is certain to bring on the sentencing court, Bolton is unlikely to serve any hard time. And the Democrat president who’s elected in 2028 may even grant Bolton a full pardon even though he’s a hardcore Republican.
We’re also disappointed in former New Britain mayor and aborted Republican gubernatorial candidate Erin Stewart, but less and less surprised as her self-dealing offenses keep piling up. She, too, should have known better, but evidently complacency, ego, and arrogance also got the better of her. We wonder if her father, who had been a four-term New Britain mayor, knew what his daughter with a decidedly promising future was up to. Sad story.
The FBI, such as it may be these days, is said to be investigating Erin Stewart’s alleged malfeasance. If she should be prosecuted by the feds and convicted for any of her offenses, Trump could pardon her, as he’s pardoned so many other criminal politicians. In that case, we shouldn’t be at all surprised to see New Britain’s former GOP youthful super star tapped by Donald Trump for a position in his famously corrupt administration.
And we’re still waiting for Trump to offer disgraced congressional con man George Santos (only the sixth U.S. representative to be expelled from the House), whose prison sentence he magnanimously commuted along with remitting the young grifter’s obligation to pay restitution and fines, a lucrative seat in his corrupt, chaotic cabinet . . .
4 June—So 83-year-old Bob Chatfield, ever-popular mayor of Prospect for 48 years, is being investigated by Connecticut State Police for sexual assault—what the fuzz call “a suspicious incident”—allegedly because he spontaneously and compassionately hugged a female town employee, the alleged accuser, presumably without her permission, last month, after they had worked on some project or other, to console her after she had lost a loved one.
Note carefully what we allege and presume.
If that’s all there was too the incident—which is likely the case—what the hell is wrong with the woman, the police, and contemporary society? Besides everything else, old farts have a terrible, absolutely disgraceful habit of comforting people whom we perceive as needing to be comforted. And hugging is a traditional and convenient way to do that. Bottom line (pun intended), it’s unlikely that Mayor Chatfield put his hands anywhere near the alleged accuser’s buttocks.
In all events, all men aren’t sexual predators like Donald Trump was—and may still be, if only in his dreams. Because these days, Trump himself is very likely harmless in that respect, given his advanced years and poor health. Despite what his flunky quacks tell the public.
Sort of reminds us of Clarence Thomas’s Supreme Court nomination hearing back in 1991 when Anita Hill accused him, her former boss, of sexually harassing her—not because he’d ever laid a hand or anything else on, in, or near her or dropped his drawers to impress her or even showed her dirty pictures, but simply because he’d talked about things like that, as many men have a bad habit of doing (sometimes with the wrong people), thus offending her unquestioned purity and sexual innocence.
(It’s a pity Clarence got confirmed, but that’s another matter.)
In conclusion, then, women are less likely to sexually assault men if only for purely physical reasons. And of course it’s gospel that women are psychologically and discretionally incapable of sexually harassing men. Sure . . .
3 June—Today’s big news is that the Borough of Litchfield’s 2026-2027 budget passed unanimously at the borough’s annual meeting late yesterday afternoon, with the slightly reduced presence of the Board of Warden and Burgesses joined by the three plain old residents who bothered to attend, whom the reduced BOWAB still outnumbered. This budget, like last year’s, was moved, seconded, and passed in something like 30 seconds.
The borough is now off the hook for the fees Chabad’s predatory shysters didn’t really earn but had to be paid anyway (thanks to the goddamned Second Circuit) in litigating Chabad Lubavitch of Litchfield County Inc’s vexatious SLAPP suit against the Historic District Commission, so the 2026-2027 budget is about $100,000 lower than last year’s and consequently the mill rate has been reduced by about five percent to 1.7. Count our blessings. Amen.
In other news, we return to the alleged sexual abuse of which the late Dave Driscoll was accused (while he was alive and running, of course, over three decades ago; he died only last year at 81 and was buried with full military honors) but never prosecuted nor even formally charged, but for which the Town of Litchfield with its relatively deep pockets is now being stalked by alleged victims (who had refused to testify when Driscoll was alive) and predatory ambulance chasers. Sorry, make that predatory personal injury shysters.
So the Monitor has learned through an invariably and incredibly reliable branch of the grapevine that the Litchfield Hills Road Race Board of Directors had intended to acknowledge Dave Driscoll’s considerable involvement with and contributions to the LHRR from its earliest days—i.e., they were prepared to give the guy at least some of the credit due him—but were warned off. It must be noted—even emphasized—that we haven’t bothered to dig up details or otherwise confirm the hearsay.
All we can say, then, is follow the money . . .