WASHINGTON – Congress has finished work on a final defense authorization bill that boosts military spending and provides more dollars for Connecticut defense contractors.
Final defense bill boosts Sikorsky helicopters and and EB subs, but trims F-35s
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Our voice, our power: An invitation to hear the candidates July 25
I arrived home from classes excited about the warm weather that guaranteed I would play soccer with my friends that evening. As I was finishing my reading assignment for 10th grade English, I received a phone call from my mom informing me my dad was at the police station for a minor traffic violation. Naively I thought to myself, “He’ll be home tonight,” but as I entered the lobby I was greeted by my mother with tears racing down her face. Immediately, my heart sank as I heard the words, “They called ICE on him, he’s being deported.”
Posted inJustice
‘Warrior of religious liberty’ Kavanaugh could shift church-state balance
WASHINGTON — There’s concern Judge Brett Kavanaugh, will speed the Supreme Court’s steady shift from a strict separation between government and religion and that his approach to religious liberty cases would determine the intensity of that trend for decades. Considered a “warrior of religious liberty” by some of his conservative admirers, Kavanaugh has defended the use of taxpayer money for religious schools and backed student-led prayers at high school football games.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
McCarthyism à la 2018 supported by CT congressional delegation
When the Democratic Party ramped up its attacks on Russia during and immediately after the 2016 election, the rhetoric was reminiscent of that used during the Cold War. It portended the hysterical reaction being displayed by political leaders (including our own congressional delegation), the media, neo-cons, and most astonishingly, “liberals” who, after years of rejecting the duplicity of U.S. intelligence agencies and criticizing the U.S. government for its treachery in other countries, now suddenly embrace the establishment’s narrative without any thoughtful analysis.
Posted inHealth
In fight against HIV, outreach workers take ‘PrEP’ to the streets
PrEP, or pre-exposure prophylaxis, can lower the risk of getting HIV through sex by more than 90 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Yet six years after the federal government approved the daily blue pill for HIV prevention, Connecticut public health officials say they are still trying to put PrEP on people’s radars, and into the hands of those most vulnerable to contracting the virus.
Posted inPolitics
Ganim preaches party unity, Lamont campaign nonplussed
BRIDGEPORT — On a waterfront crowded with stories of disappointment and promise, some dating back to his first tenure in city hall here in the 1990s, Mayor Joseph P. Ganim jumped on the back of a pickup truck Monday to accept the endorsement by four trade unions of a campaign that is testing the notion of whether Connecticut is ready to elect an ex-con as governor.
Posted inPolitics
Four more candidates win public financing for primaries
The State Elections Enforcement Commission approved public-financing grants Monday for four statewide candidates facing primaries in three weeks: Shawn Wooden, Dita Bhargava and Art Linares for treasurer and Jayme Stevenson for lieutenant governor.
Posted inPolitics
Blumenthal, other Dems, say Kavanaugh threatens Mueller probe
WASHINGTON – Sen. Richard Blumenthal on Monday joined other Democrats in assailing Supreme court nominee Brett Kavanaugh for suggesting, years ago, that justices were wrong in deciding former President Richard Nixon had to obey a subpoena to turn over the Watergate tapes.
Posted inPolitics
The 2020 race for CT House majority leader is on
Reps. Robyn Porter and Jason Rojas are asking colleagues to consider supporting them as the next House majority leader on the assumption the current majority leader, Matt Ritter of Harford, will succeed Joe Aresimowicz as speaker, either after Aresimowicz voluntarily steps down after the 2020 elections — or he loses his seat in 2018. Republicans, of course, could render their efforts moot by winning a majority in the closely divided House in 2018 or 2020.
Posted inMoney
Report: ‘Sin’ taxes pose fiscal — not health — risks for states
Connecticut and most other states need to be cautious about their rapidly increasing reliance on cigarette and other volatile “sin” taxes, according to a new report from Pew Charitable Trusts.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
The Metro-North ‘CALMmute’ or how to ruin a good idea
“Train time is your own time” was the old marketing slogan of Metro-North, encouraging commuters to kick back and enjoy the ride while reading, working or taking a snooze. But in reality, train time is shared time. They don’t call it “mass transit” for nothing as passengers much share their space with a hundred other commuters on each rail car.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
No mystery to Trump-Putin relationship. It’s all about OILigarchy
As we shake our heads and wring our hands over the obsequious behavior of President Trump at his “diplomatic” summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and try to decipher and explain such behavior, it would seem that we are probably just nurturing anxiety in full knowledge of the reason(s) for such behavior and its unspeakable implications for our country and political-economic system.
Posted inHealth
Despite progress, HIV racial divide persists
By the time Arthur Harris turned 17, he had already endured a childhood of grinding poverty in Hartford’s North End, the death of his mother, and the rejection of a community that viewed homosexuality as a sin. It should have come as no surprise to anyone, then, that he went searching for love and acceptance wherever he could find it — a search that led him to contract HIV before he was 18. The virus, which can lead to AIDS if untreated, disproportionately affects African-Americans all over the country, including in Connecticut.
Posted inNews
Putinistic, pugilistic politics here and in Washington, D.C.
Fallout from President Donald Trump’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin dominated the political conversation last week as the president tried to unwind his previous refusal to support the U.S. intelligence community’s finding that Russia meddled in the 2016 elections.
Posted inEducation
Immigrant shelters drug traumatized teenagers without consent
The Trump administration’s practice of separating immigrant families at the Mexican border has exacerbated an ongoing problem: the failure of government-funded facilities to seek informed consent before medicating undocumented teenagers, about 1,200 of whom are in custody.