Bob Stefanowski recently wrote an Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal about Hartford,  the city that I call home.  In it the failed gubernatorial candidate showcased his profound inability to grasp the substantive and political realities of our state’s failures. In fact, the only thing I learned from it was that all you need to be published in the Wall Street Journal these days is a failed statewide campaign and a strident, anti-urban viewpoint devoid of facts. 

May peace, safety, order, and civility be restored in our beloved country. This Ahmadi Muslim American is heartbroken to witness the shameless sedition and condemnable insurrection displayed at my country’s Capitol by enabled domestic terrorists. We desperately need to unite in the name of absolute justice against all forms of disorder, corruption, and senselessness before civil war erupts…

Since March 2020, our brave-heart teachers have, out of necessity, single-handedly altered how they instruct their students. They have made changes to accommodate scheduling vagaries, sometimes teaching one group of children one week in their classrooms and then teaching that group solely online the following week. Sometimes they have been confronted with teaching some children in person, while at the same time teaching others online. They have done this while always keeping in the forefront how best to create a safe and loving learning environment for each of the students in their care.

In politics, power is golden. Indeed, power, not riches, is the coin of the political realm. In Connecticut, the Ritters, a power family, are the closest we have come to political royalty.

A commentary Dec. 31 in the CT Mirror by Keith Brothers, the Business Manager of the CT Laborers District Council and President of the Norwich-New London Building Trades Council, contained some valid points, but its main point that project labor agreements do not cost more money is widely known to be false.

My fellow Americans, please stop wishing me a Happy New Year. I’m begging you. Do you want to jinx it already? Besides, let’s be realistic, shall we? How happy are any of us going to be this side of Warren Buffet?

As a lifelong Danbury resident, I am compelled to respond to the recent piece about Faith Acts’ plea for Governor Lamont to fund our schools equitably. While Faith Acts primarily operates in Bridgeport and New Haven, Danbury struggles with the same issues of school segregation they work to address.

When the COVID-19 pandemic first hit our state – hard – Gov. Ned Lamont appeared wearing a mask that read “Science Will Win.” In his approach to COVID-19, Lamont has relied unceasingly on scientific data, sought close collaboration with neighboring states, and communicated important information to the public. Guided by science, he is demonstrating exemplary leadership in navigating the pandemic. Contrast this COVID-19 response to climate science and fossil fuel policy in Connecticut. It is obvious that science is not winning.

In March 2020, the City of Hartford asked the Greater Hartford Arts Council to survey a number of local arts organizations about how they were faring at the beginning of the pandemic. That quick snapshot of about 14 organizations showed striking results – these organizations were projecting losses totaling $2.1 million after just 30 days. And that was only a fraction of all of the organizations our region has to offer.

America has done an amazingly bad job dealing with the pandemic. There’s a strange sort of vertigo one feels upon hearing that in South Korea they’re enacting new restrictions because there are a thousand new cases in a day, while we clock a million a week. What alarms me is that we seem to be accepting the carnage. Thousands die daily, and we still eat at restaurants, fly on airplanes, carry on and spread the virus.

And now we are the victim of a brazen cyber-attack that is so massively destructive that we cannot even calculate the extent of the damage.  What do we do?  Our leaders will likely say (and are saying) that we must build far greater offensive cyber weapons and then brutally retaliate and thus hold “them” accountable. “America must retaliate, and not just with sanctions,” Sen. Marco Rubio proclaimed. That will deter “them” and any “Other” from attacking us again. And then- and then-  who knows? Total cyber -paralysis?

Gov. Ned Lamont  and his administration are once again looking for another way to impose more taxes on the poor and middle class in Connecticut. This time it’s a regional gas tax called the Transportation and Climate Initiative that will raise the gas prices an estimated 5 to 17 cents per gallon with the possibility of future increases in upcoming years.

It is easier to get marijuana in Connecticut than a vaccine against the COVID-19 virus. It is true that a license is needed and requires a prescription.  Vaccines need FDA approval and trained personnel. 

The COVID pandemic has laid bare the extent of inequalities across Connecticut’s cities, towns and school districts and the children and families they serve. Connecticut has long been one of our nation’s most racially and economically segregated states, while also one of the wealthiest. In the past decade those inequities have worsened along both economic and racial lines. In 2021, Connecticut continues to face the interrelated challenges of segregation and school funding equity and adequacy.  Connecticut must do better.

When my colleagues and I go in to convene the new legislative session, we have the daunting task of crafting a balanced state budget in the face of massive unemployment and billion-dollar deficits that will make providing relief to working people struggling in a global pandemic, indeed, a heavy lift.