It is a time of reckoning for Connecticut’s private, nonprofit social services. After two decades of flat or reduced funding from its chief client — state government — community-based agencies are struggling to retain both their programs and the low-paid staff who deliver care for thousands of poor, disabled and mentally-ill adults and children.
Change is coming for nonprofit human service providers, but will it make or break them?
Posted inNews
True, false, real, fake: What or who to believe?
The contemporary American’s dilemma last week: Deciding what is true or false, real or fake, and what to believe. President Donald Trump, at a rally in Wilkes Barre, Pa., told the nation last week that what they read in the American press is “fake, fake disgusting news” – or at least that’s what the media reported.
Posted inHealth
Depression affects Connecticut women much more than men
Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide, according to the World Health Organization, and affects women at about twice the rate that it does men. In Connecticut, 21.4 percent of women report experiencing depression, compared with 13.4 percent of men, according to 2015 Department of Public Health data. Millennial women in the state experience […]
Posted inNews
Election commission documents cast doubt on Trump’s claims of voter fraud
In May of 2017, President Donald Trump established a presidential commission to explore the threat of voter fraud — staffing it with multiple Republicans who had theorized that fraud was a substantial problem in American democracy. The commission, widely called the voter fraud commission, was immediately criticized as a political creation aimed at a phony problem.
Posted inGovernment
Feedback sought on data plan that could improve Connecticut life
It sounds kind of abstract and nerdy, but state officials want feedback on a draft data plan they hope could lead to better outcomes in the opioid crisis, climate change resiliency, and the workforce pipeline.
Posted inPolitics
Hatfield opposes 3D-printed guns, loses endorsement of gun group
With the gun lobby, it seems to be all or nothing. Susan Hatfield, the endorsed Republican candidate for attorney general, said Friday that her opposition to untraceable 3D-printed firearms — a position the President Trump has hinted he might adopt — has cost her the support of the state’s largest gun owners’ group, the Connecticut Citizens Defense League.
Posted inNews
Boughton visits home with crumbling foundations, calls on insurance companies to help
WILLINGTON — Republican gubernatorial contender Mark Boughton on Friday visited one of thousands of Connecticut homes whose concrete foundations are crumbling beneath them, making the pitch that if elected, he would tackle the slow-motion disaster by initially taking the insurance companies to task.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
In the year of #MeToo and Time’s Up, legislators helped some
In the year of #MeToo and Time’s Up, what was the General Assembly’s record addressing policy issues that impact women and girls disproportionately? Similar to last year, the results were a mix of wins, losses, and missed opportunities.
Posted inPolitics
Bysiewicz v. Zimmerman: Experience v. ‘a different kind of candidate’
The Democratic candidates for lieutenant governor, Susan Bysiewicz and Eva Bermudez Zimmerman sparred over taxes, experience and Connecticut’s massive pension debt Thursday during their only debate, a live-streamed forum at NBC Connecticut in West Hartford.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
CT poised to catch brunt of Trump’s auto standard rollbacks
The Trump administration has unveiled its proposal to dramatically weaken auto emission and efficiency standards. Few states will feel the consequences of it more than Connecticut.
Posted inHealth
Blumenthal presses state for protections in ‘short-term’ health plans
WASHINGTON – Sen. Richard Blumenthal on Thursday said he’s talked with state officials about placing consumer protections on any new health insurance policies sold in Connecticut once the new Trump administration regulation on short-term plans takes effect in about 60 days.
Posted inJustice
Murphy, gun control groups ramp up fight against Kavanaugh
WASHINGTON – Gun control groups, who are among the most active in the “stop Kavanaugh” movement, were helped by Sen. Chris Murphy on Thursday as they ratcheted up their opposition to President Donald Trump’s choice to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court.
Posted inMoney
Legislators uncertain about legalizing sports betting before ’19
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said Thursday his administration could have a proposal ready soon for legislative consideration on a new state system for managing and profiting from sports betting. Whether lawmakers will come back to consider it before the new legislature and governor take office in January are another matter.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
What’s at stake in the race for lieutenant governor
Two hours before dawn on August 22, 1991, a tie vote in the state Senate was broken by Lowell Weicker’s lieutenant governor, whose action guaranteed that a state income tax would be imposed on the people of Connecticut. The spending spree enabled by that infamous vote was the chief cause of our subsequent economic decline. Since the tax took effect, we rank dead last in economic growth among the 50 states. It matters who breaks ties in the Connecticut Senate.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Criticisms of the kneeling protest are ‘hollow, self-serving, gratuitous’
The continuous unfolding news accounts of Haddam Selectwoman Melissa Schlag and her exercise of free speech rights by taking a knee on July 16 and kneeling on both knees at (the July 30) Monday’s Board of Selectmen fortnightly meetings have drawn the attention of the state and nation, with a mix of ire and support by local residents and veterans as her actions were vilified loudly by political campaigners for statewide office, and later with an additional pile on by other candidates.