Senate GOP contender Linda McMahon and former WWE executive never embraced the “Mama Grizzly” label offered up by Sarah Palin in the last election. But she does seem to have taken to Palin’s mode of media communication. With buzz circulating about her political plans now that Sen. Joseph  Lieberman has announced he’ll retire in 2012 […]

WASHINGTON–Republicans declined to take the word “killing,” as in that job-killing health care law, out of the title of their repeal legislation. And one Florida Democrat on Tuesday accused the GOP of pushing “lock, stock, and barrel” to overturn the law. A week after the Arizona shooting rampage that targeted Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, some lawmakers […]

WASHINGTON-Haven’t recovered yet from the caustic and costly 2010 Senate contest? Get ready, because the next round is taking shape, fast and furious. There may be another 656 days before voters choose a successor to Sen. Joseph Lieberman, who today announced his decision to retire instead of run for a 5th term. But the slate […]

WASHINGTON–Rep. Joe Courtney recently found himself testifying before a House committee about a family physician from Hebron who, thanks to small-business tax credits included in the health care reform law, will be getting a $4,000 break this year. Rep. Rosa DeLauro was at the Milford Senior Center last week highlighting the health overhaul’s benefits for […]

WASHINGTON–John Olsen is having a King Solomon moment. The Connecticut labor leader’s dilemma doesn’t involve two women and a baby. Instead, it involves two congressmen and a Senate seat. That would be Reps. Joe Courtney and Chris Murphy, who represent Connecticut’s 2nd and 5th districts respectively. Both men were elected in 2006, defeating Republicans in […]

WASHINGTON-Despite tight budgets and ballooning enrollment, Medicaid programs in Connecticut and across the country were able to preserve or even expand health care services to the poor in 2010, according to a new report released Tuesday. But 2011 could be dramatically different. Arizona officials have already moved to cut off Medicaid coverage for people in […]

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, already reeling from this weekend’s shooting of her congressional colleague, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, got more terrible news on Monday. Her former chief of staff, Ashley Turton, a longtime Capitol Hill aide turned lobbyist, was found dead in her car on Monday morning. She was apparently involved in a low-speed crash that resulted […]

WASHINGTON–As House Republicans make their first run at the health care reform law, Democrats say the GOP is doing the bidding of big insurance. “Why are they engaged in this effort?” asked Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3rd District. “Because, quite frankly, I believe it’s what the insurance companies want.” It just ain’t so, comes the response […]

WASHINGTON-There was no extra security at the Milford Senior Center this morning when Rep. Rosa DeLauro spoke to a small crowd about the Republican effort to repeal health reform. Similarly, Sen. Richard Blumenthal hasn’t altered the arrangements for his two-week “listening tour” across Connecticut. And Rep. Chris Murphy hopes to hold one of his usual […]

The Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate is seen as a bulwark against Republican efforts to undo health care reform, but Sen. Joseph Lieberman says that he is going into the debate with an “open mind” about what changes, if any, would make sense. Lieberman said he does not favor repealing the entire law, but he wants to […]

WASHINGTON–Democrat Richard Blumenthal was sworn in as Connecticut’s junior U.S. Senator on Wednesday, joining a weakened Democratic majority and fulfilling his own lifelong political aspiration. Blumenthal took the oath of office at 12:10 p.m., with his hand on a weathered Bible he borrowed from a family friend. He was one of 13 new senators-but the […]

President Barack Obama re-nominated a bevy of judicial candidates on Wednesday, asking the new Senate to vote on 42 contenders whose names stalled in the 111th Congress. On Wednesday’s list: Connecticut’s Susan L. Carney, nominated by the White House to be a judge on the 2nd Circuit. Carney is now deputy general counsel at Yale, and […]

WASHINGTON–Try finding an apartment in Glastonbury for a young adult who is mentally ill, never finished high school, and is currently unemployed. “It’s almost impossible,” said Kim Beauregard, CEO of InterCommunity Inc., a nonprofit agency that serves adults and children living with mental illness and addiction problems. For the seven towns her agency serves, from […]

It’s not every day that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which spent millions in the last election to elect conservative candidates, rushes to the defense of a liberal Democrat like Rep. Joe Courtney, of Connecticut’s 2nd District. But a nasty fight in Washington over the rules governing federal transportation spending has upended some of this city’s usual […]