Submitted by Brian Raabe, Greenwich
The Republican BET slate will soon be known.
Lots of intraparty complaining about their primary costing $85,000.
Weird for a group that sees spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal fees for the town to be suing itself as just fine.
But apparently $85,000 to ensure all voices, even in their own party, are heard is a bridge too far.
I suppose each wants to be the toughest in the room when it comes to fiscal prudence.
It is not fear mongering to say what is at stake is whether the red carpet for the national Republican agenda will be rolled out in Greenwich and in Connecticut broadly, or whether we will be something better.
Local Republican candidates like young master Fazio for Governor did not want to have that “Republican National Agenda’ conversation last election – didn’t want to be tied to that.
But in this round, fealty is foremost. And they are emboldened.
Quoted in the CT Mirror, “’I voted for the President. I have great respect for his service and patriotism,’ said Fazio, who had declined to discuss Trump during the 2024 campaign.”
https://ctmirror.org/2024/09/
In his run for the Governor’s office, Fazio has climbed up on his white steed of campaign oratory with,
“Under Ned Lamont and his radical legislature, electric rates and taxes have soared to the third highest in the country.”
“There is not a corner of the state you can go to where you don’t hear concerns about electric bills…”
Huh, kinda crazy then that your guy in D.C. just pulled the plug on an offshore wind farm that is 75% complete and would serve our state.
I assume you will publicly pronounce your support for completion, what with all your drum beating about electricity rates.
Yes… Any day now?
Anyway, Mr. Fazio’s endorsement of the project is doubtful.
Yes, he carps about electricity – but the orange glow of his north star in the White House is against those bird killing monstrosities, and so he must be too. Even when 75% complete.
And you call the CT legislature radical?
When Project Veritas came to town to protest on opening day of schools a few years back, Mr. Fazio was grinning like a kid about to get cake next to its former (disgraced) leader.
Scroll down to the photo in the attached –
https://greenwichdemocrats.
Yes it’s a Greenwich Democrats newsletter – before any of you Mystery Machine Scooby Doo-ers tag me as an instrument of the opposition, if you Google images “Greenwich Fazio Veritas” that’s what you get.
It calls to mind the scene in “The Untouchables” when the baby carriage is bouncing from step to step and Elliot Ness must decide whether to catch the bad guy or catch the carriage.
My impression is if candidate Fazio were forced to decide between charging the podium for the photo op with Veritas or catching the carriage, there would have been more than a moment of hesitation.
Years ago when I first saw a MAGA sign by the OGRCC, I thought it was anomaly.
No way, not here…
Then more signs.
And a local fundraiser with Ron Desantis. And our First Selectman Fred Camillo’s quote about him “doing some good things” in Florida.
Did you see Florida just eliminated mandatory vaccines. None, zero.
Not sure “Bring Back Polio” is a winning platform but you do you Repubs.
Now one could say “I can get a shot if I want to,” but insurers are asking whether they should reimburse vaccine costs if not state mandated.
Welcome to the Idiocracy.
“Doing some good things?”
Next stop Connecticut.
This is the party of going backwards.
This is the party of coal power over wind.
This is the party of herd immunity through a dark ages sacrifice of the weak.
This is the party of an assault on education.
This is the party shutting down research funding for the best and the brightest of the American University System.
Decades of damage done.
These are now local issues, brought to you by the slavish devotion of the local Greenwich Republican Party.
Now doing “some good things” here.
Cutting the school budget.
Halting a near complete wind farm project.
Taking a decade plus to clean up PCBs at the High School.
Treating the elderly with contempt by making Nathaniel Witherell a perpetual budgetary pawn.
My mother-in-law’s final time was spent at Nathaniel Witherell. She passed this summer.
The town wants to sell Witherell and privatize.
Despicable.
The Republican upstarts that forced the current primary say they are “For the Taxpayers” in Greenwich.
Not subtle.
Not for students.
Not for the elderly.
Not for those without agency.
They are FOR those that want police – and roads, maybe some fire and occasional snow plowing.
Good enough.
They are FOR residents who, as one person recently described to me, “have almost no contact with any of the town’s services.”
Is this the party you want running Greenwich for all of us?
You can call yourself anything you want, but I would imagine above all you consider yourself reasonable, educated.
What we are seeing transcends party.
It is wrong.
It is backwards.
And people must speak up.
I get a lot of “like your letters.” “Agree with you.”
(And I get people that think otherwise but seem to speak in emojis on social media versus using their big words.)
If you are one of the former, you can’t nod in ascent as you read.
You must engage.
Act on your beliefs through legislation and in the voting booth.
It’s too late to close your eyes and hope.
From the macro to the micro what has truly made America Great, not the perversion being puked up on angry red hats and t-shirts – but what has truly made America and its Democracy great – is being plowed under.
And if you aren’t willing to fight to stop that in your own Greenwich backyard then where will you be?
Brian Raabe