Thank you!
Your support is sustaining the future of local news in our communities.

Letter to the Editor 3/13/25

Chris Murphy: Poster boy for what’s wrong with Democrats

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) is all over Facebook these days, asking for donations so that he can lead us to a better world.

Mr. Murphy is making his big push to the forefront of the national Democratic party as he apparently gears up to run for president in 2028.

In his Facebook fundraising and fearmongering pitch, Murphy screams like a good Democrat that we’re in a “constitutional crisis.” He says Donald Trump is trying to “shut down democracy” so that his “billionaire friends can steal from us.”

What? Again? This is the same failed playbook the Democrats have been using for 10 years. Don’t the Dems ever learn? One of Murphy’s own colleagues, Sen. John Fetterman (D-Penn.), summed it up best after his party’s truculent performance at Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress. Fetterman said the Democrats are like car alarms that go off and no one pays any attention to them.

But screaming that the end is nigh is all the Democrats have. Endless claims of existential threats to democracy, to the Constitution, to the planet, to humanity, to government bureaucracy, to the Democrat agenda, ad nauseam.

Ever since the Dems got shellacked in November, they have assumed that all they need to do is a better job of putting out their fearmongering message. But messaging is not their main problem, although it is a problem.

Their main problem is their actual agendas and policies. As long as the Democrats keep pushing their transgender insanity, their woke insanity, their Diversity, Equity and Inclusion insanity, they will continue to lose. As long as they keep shouting against false fascist demons and for false woke gods, they will lose. As long as they divide us with identity politics, they will lose. The country has had enough.

Murphy, however, is one of the left’s old-school types. He doesn’t know how to do anything but fearmonger. He is fully embedded in the Democrat’s dying agenda and in the notion that screaming louder about Armageddon at the hands of Donald Trump and the MAGA hordes is the key to victory.

Well, if Chris Murphy is the best the Democrats have to offer, then JD Vance or Pam Bondi will be elected president in 2028, and even more Democrats will cross party lines to join the Republicans.

That will really make Sen. Murphy and the Democrats scream.

The Democrats should forget “messaging.” The only way they can fix their morass is to take all the insanity out of their platform.

But then they’d be Republicans.

Mark Godburn

Norfolk

The views expressed here are not necessarily those of The Lakeville Journal and The Journal does not support or oppose candidates for public office.

Latest News

A life reshaped by clay in “Matin”

Left to right: Hannah Wheeler, Matin Malikzada and Yonah Sadeh.

D.H. Callahan

On Monday, Oct. 26, a group of students, teachers and local residents gathered at the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville for a screening of the new short documentary “Matin.” The film tells the story of Matin Malikzada, a seventh-generation Afghani potter making a new life in New Milford, Connecticut. The film was made by local filmmaker Yonah Sadeh, creator of the Video Wall at the David M. Hunt Library, and Berkshires-based potter Hannah Wheeler, who were both present for the screening, along with Malikzada himself.

As a member of the seventh generation of his family to master the art of pottery, Malikzada had done things the way his family had for over a century. Istalif, the village where his family has lived for generations, was known throughout Afghanistan for its pottery, with wares sent across the country for use as everyday cups, bowls, plates and other vessels. The pottery-making families of Istalif gathered clay from the same mountain, about 30 to 45 minutes away by donkey. Every July, they would head north toward the Uzbekistan border to gather ishkar, a plant they processed by hand to make their signature glazes.

Keep ReadingShow less
Meg Sher finds her calling among the stacks

Meg Sher, executive director of the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village.

L. Tomaino

When Meg Sher came to Falls Village in 2006 from Old Lyme, Connecticut, where she grew up, she never imagined she’d someday be the executive director of the David M. Hunt Library.

Although, in hindsight, perhaps it makes sense.

Keep ReadingShow less
Crescendo’s 23rd season speaks to the heart and mind

Christine Gevert, founding artistic director of Crescendo, conducts the audience at a performance.

Steve Potter

For Christine Gevert, founding artistic director of Crescendo, music from centuries past is anything but a relic. It is a living, breathing art form, full of drama, emotional complexity and, occasionally, surprises. As the regional choral and period-instrument ensemble launches its 23rd season, Gevert is once again bringing forgotten masterpieces into the present.

“Early Music has been my lifelong passion and the focus of my specialization in Europe and South America,” Gevert said. “Bringing this repertoire to our audiences in a nuanced way that does justice to its incredible depth, intensity, and beauty is deeply important to me.”

Keep ReadingShow less
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.

Close Encounters with Music celebrates 35 years of musical discovery

Close Encounters with Music’s 35th season opens with “Saluting the Clarinet” featuring clarinetist Alexander Fiterstein.

Provided

For 35 years, cellist Yehuda Hanani has been inviting audiences to experience classical music in unexpected ways. As founder and artistic director of Close Encounters with Music, Hanani has built a concert series that goes beyond the music itself, exploring connections to literature, history, politics and the human experience.

This year, Close Encounters celebrates its 35th season with “Celebration & Discovery,” a seven-concert series that opens Sunday, Nov. 1, at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington.

Keep ReadingShow less
Shinbone Alley brings spooky songs to Spencertown

Seeing isn’t always believing. Sometimes it’s the lack of a defined picture that can be the most compelling. And when Alex Harvey of Shinbone Alley sings his supernaturally charged sea shanties and street ballads, the unseen will be downright scary. On Oct. 30, the historically inclined storyteller and performer will create a spooky evening of forbidden tales and yarns through a carefully chosen series of songs at Spencertown Academy of Arts.

The repertoire for the performance is a bit fraught. Over the years, Shinbone Alley has explored the world of folklore through music. Though the group usually features two musicians, Harvey, a multi-instrumentalist and singer, will be performing solo. That is, of course, unless you include the spirits.

Keep ReadingShow less
Malian blues and Moroccan Gnawa meet in Sheffield
Vieux Farka Touré
Proivded

Desert winds rarely blow into the Berkshires, but on Nov. 5, they will carry the Malian blues and Moroccan Gnawa music to Race Brook Lodge.

That evening, Malian guitarist Vieux Farka Touré, often called “the Hendrix of the Sahara,” and Moroccan musician Samir LanGus will play at the lodge’s Event Barn in Sheffield, Massachusetts, at a benefit for the foundation Touré directs.

Keep ReadingShow less
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.

google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.