The House of Representatives unanimously approved and sent to the governor’s desk Monday a bill to enable defendants exercising free speech to fight back against some anti-defamation lawsuits intended to silence them.
June 5, 2017
Posted inPolitics, Transportation
Autonomous vehicle testing bill heads to Malloy’s desk
The bill imposes strict standards on the testing. Among other things, it requires autonomous vehicle testers to obtain consent from any town where they would like to conduct a test.
Posted inJustice
Looking at police use of force from across a racial divide
A debate Monday over the police use of force laid bare partisan, racial and geographic divisions in the Connecticut House, where black and Puerto Rican Democrats united behind a bill whose very title, An Act Concerning Police Misconduct, was branded an insult to law enforcement by the House Republican leader.
Posted inPolitics, Transportation
Trump transportation plan would privatize Bradley’s air traffic controllers
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is rolling out his infrastructure plan this week, and the first proposal would privatize the nation’s air traffic controllers, including the 17 that direct takeoffs and landings at Bradley International Airport.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Mohegan is trying to be the competition they want CT to fear
If the Mohegan Tribe has their way, a satellite casino in East Windsor will not be the only new casino they would build in the region. As the Mohegan Sun Massachusetts (yes, Massachusetts) website currently points out, “Mohegan Sun Massachusetts is prepared to break ground immediately.”
Posted inHealth, Money, Politics
Pot legalization measure bogs down in partisan feud
The legislature provided the latest example from a dysfunctional session Monday as a bipartisan effort to legalize recreational marijuana broke down minutes before its public announcement.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
An ECS tale of two cities: It is the best of times, the worst of times
For some Connecticut cities and towns, it has been and continues to be the best of times, at the expense of others for whom it has been and continues to be the worst of times. And those at the state Capitol, like Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, continue to ignore the state’s education funding inequity or claim they are helpless to resolve it.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Support small business: Pass paid leave this year
As the owner of a small business in Colchester, I support paid family and medical leave as a critical safety net that will support workers during times of financial insecurity, when their last concern should be missing a paycheck. Contrary to the narrative spread by the big business lobby, a new poll shows that 77 percent of small business owners in Connecticut support paid family and medical leave. When respondents learn more about paid leave, including how a range of research has demonstrated its benefits for businesses, support for legislation climbs to 85 percent. And it’s easy to see why.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
A free press supporting informed and engaged communities is at risk
Thomas Jefferson sued the Hartford Courant for libel. (He lost.) But Jefferson still believed that, given the choice of government without newspapers or newspapers without government, “I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers, and be capable of reading them.” Today, however, Jefferson’s vision of a free press supporting informed and engaged communities, the prerequisite to a well-functioning democracy, is at risk. The good news is there is hope, and everyone has a role to play.
Posted inPolitics
Hartford’s 11th-hour casino game is ‘Let’s Make a Deal’
The Connecticut legislature’s long debate about the implications of expanding casino gambling has come down to a stark question of transactional politics: What do a relative handful of urban Democratic legislators want in return for allowing the Mashantucket Pequots and Mohegans to jointly develop the state’s third casino, its first off tribal lands?
Posted inHealth, Politics
Tom Price bought drug stocks, then pushed Pharma’s agenda in Australia
Before he was named U.S. Secretary of Health, Tom Price took a congressional trip to Australia and pressed officials to extend protections for drug companies in an international trade agreement. Three weeks earlier he had purchased $90,000 in pharmaceutical stocks.