The Red Line

Americans should be thankful, not fearful. The U.S. is unlikely to see the kind of COVID-19 surge now occurring in Europe or be as severely impacted by the Omicron variant.

The U.S. has high COVID-19 vaccination rates. Eighty-two percent of those 18 and older and 100% of the uniquely vulnerable population over age 65 have had at least one shot, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Of equal importance, over 96% of vaccine doses administered have been the strong 95%-effective Pfizer and Moderna shots.

The U.S. has been fast to deploy boosters, especially to those over 65, over 40% of whom have been boosted. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, while fast-acting, lose effectiveness over time. The elderly were vaccinated first, so they are most in need of boosters.

In Europe, vaccination rates are high, but many people have been vaccinated with less effective vaccines, primarily the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine which is somewhere between 63% and 79% effective.

Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont went to Washington last week. He visited the White House, with whose occupant he shares much in common, especially on the “lunch pail” issues of gas prices and jobs.

Biden’s policies have already pushed gas prices to record seven-year highs. Lamont’s gas price hikes are only an ambition right now. The Connecticut General Assembly has not yet approved Lamont’s proposed new gas tax, aka the multi-state Transportation Climate Initiative (TCI) – emphasis on “yet.”

“Yet” is the point. Voters in next week’s local elections should keep in mind that General Assembly Democrats are watching. If local Democrats do well, Democrats in Hartford may gain the confidence to pass TCI.

For his part, Biden is taking rightful heat for high gas prices, since his anti-carbon policies are largely to blame. The day he took office, Biden cancelled the Keystone pipeline and froze oil and gas exploration leasing on federal lands.

Since July, oil has jumped from about $60 a barrel to about $85 and gas prices have skyrocketed. Is Biden concerned? Just the opposite. He has been worried that his multi-trillion dollar Build Back Better bill with its anti-carbon provisions may not come together before the Glasgow climate summit.

Here’s a four-point action plan for citizens who want to resist the efforts of teacher unions and the Biden administration to force Critical Race Theory (CRT) into public schools.

The plan recommends four resolutions that citizens can propose that local school boards adopt and school board candidates endorse. With less than three weeks to election day, it enables voters to determine where school board candidates stand on this controversial issue.

Resolution number 1: This school board will not accept, nor utilize any material, from The New York Times’ “1619 Project,” which argues that slavery is the central theme of U.S. history, that 1619 is the year America “began,” and that the Revolutionary War was fought to preserve slavery.

China and climate change, the jobs crisis in Connecticut, homicides and police use of force, Afghanistan and Connecticut's unique government employee retirement crisis - all of these are ongoing concerns of great import. Here's the latest.

Governor Lamont is negotiating a new wage contract with the State Employees Bargaining Alliance Coalition (SEBAC).

Despite Lamont’s claims to the contrary, he is very likely to award state employees significant future wage increases as well as generous modification of the cost-of-living-adjustments to their pensions after their retirement.

These new wage hikes and benefits will come on the heels of big wage increases in 2019 and 2020 under the old wage contract which expired this past summer.

Nothing ever stands in the way of the ever-increasing generosity of state employee compensation.

Nothing. Not this week’s data release showing that the median American household saw its income fall 2.9% last year while Connecticut state employees got a 5.5% wage increase.

The true fiber of this nation has been on brilliant display in recent weeks. While the president and his foreign policy and military advisors have disgraced the nation with their incompetence and worse, America’s military veterans have redeemed the nation’s honor with ingenuity and dedication in what has been called the Digital Dunkirk.

We just lost an unlosable war. Over the last five years, with relatively modest military resources and extremely low casualties – less than 70, we’ve been able to maintain relative stability in Afghanistan. Then, Biden pulled the plug.

Now, Afghanistan is a disaster, a stain on U.S. honor and values, and a defeat with incalculable costs for ongoing U.S. foreign policy.

While the Pentagon stopped releasing troop levels in 2017, the last reported level was about 10,000, although the AP reports that the Trump Administration planned as many as 14,000 troops in 2017. Yet the low casualty levels imply a general decline.

A military mission requiring 10,000 or fewer troops and involving such a low casualty rate is not a failure, quite the opposite. And how did Biden lose sight of the original mission? Now, how do we prevent Afghan-based terrorists from staging another attack on the USA or a key ally?

Afghanistan has been misconceived. It has been characterized as an unwinnable war, and the seemingly logical conclusion reached that it should be ended, because unwinnable wars are fruitless endeavors. That’s wrong. We did not need to win.

Have we won the Korean War? Almost three-quarters of a century after Korean hostilities ended, Korea is still divided. We haven’t defeated the communists in the North. Should we pull the plug?

We have stationed tens of thousands of U.S. troops there -- 23,000 troops today -- ever since the early 1950s. Today, South Korea is an inspiring success, a vibrant economy and society, and an important strategic ally.

Connecticut’s privileged state employees and its downtrodden private sector workers might as well occupy different planets.

Hundreds of thousands private sector workers lost their jobs during the pandemic. State workers have enjoyed a decade-long no-layoff guarantee, so not one was thrown out of work.

While private sector workers struggled to get by during the pandemic, state workers got two 5.5% pay raises, one eight months before and the second four months into the pandemic.

Local police and firefighters and predominantly private sector health care workers manned the frontline jobs during the pandemic, as did essential retail workers – in grocery stores, pharmacies, etc

Apart from our brave state police, corrections officers in prisons, staff at UConn Health Center, public transportation workers and some other areas not readily apparent, many, if not most, state workers did not face the public until last June 1st. They worked remotely or not at all.

Now, the union doesn't want at least 10,000 non-public facing office workers to have to come back as ordered by Governor Lamont effective July 1st. In early July, the union sued the state for these employees to have the right to work from home 100 percent of the time (at their own discretion), rather than the 50% provided in the contract. On Monday, Lamont caved to the union demand. Meanwhile, many businesses – not all - are calling remote workers back into offices.