Jennifer Jaff, the founder and executive director of Advocacy for Patients with Chronic Illness, has died. Jaff, 55, a former Connecticut assistant attorney general who had a chronic disease, Crohn’s, founded the non-profit group to help patients file appeals for health-insurance coverage. She is remembered in a tribute piece published by Daily Kos and on […]
Jennifer Jaff, patient advocate, dies
Posted inPolitics
National Dems reinvest in Murphy
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign committee is spending another $320,000 to keep airing attack ads against Republican Senate candidate Linda McMahon, a Democratic source said. The new ad buy comes as Rep. Chris Murphy, D-5th District, ratchets up his attacks on McMahon, linking her to controversial budget cuts proposed by conservative Republicans and an amendment that […]
Posted inNews
Nonpartisan congressional study: Tax breaks for rich don’t grow jobs
A congressional research service is challenging the candidates who say that preserving Bush-era tax breaks for the rich are a way to increase jobs. In fact, the non-partisan Congressional Research Service not only found no evidence that six decades of relief for the wealthy helped the nation’s economy, they also warned that this may have […]
Posted inNews
Panel looks to tackle skyrocketing special education costs
A state panel is considering recommending wealthy school districts and high-income parents with special needs children pay more to cover the skyrocketing price of special education. One in eight Connecticut students — more than 60,000 — receives special education services, and nearly $1 of every $4 spent on education goes to special education. In the […]
Posted inNews
Economic picture grim as job losses reappear
After hitting its lowest point this past spring since emerging from the the recent recession, the state’s economy might need until 2018 to recover all of the jobs it lost, the University of Connecticut is reporting today in its latest quarterly journal. “At the current rate it will take nearly six more years to recover […]
Posted inNews
DSCC chair shares press aide with Murphy
U.S. Senate candidate Chris Murphy has beefed up his campaign press staff with Eli Zupnick, who arrives in Connecticut via the staff of Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the chairwoman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. The Murphy campaign is downplaying the addition of a new staffer with a DSCC connection, sensitive to the perception […]
Posted inNews
Here’s a forum McMahon and Murphy should consider
It’s his bank, her company. What could be fairer?
Posted inNews
A political wunderkind now second-guessed
An element of Chris Murphy’s personal narrative is that he would be the poorest member of the U.S. Senate if elected, a young father who still owes student loans, giving him common ground with struggling middle-class families. It is a biography that could have accommodated a chapter about getting sued after missing rent and mortgage […]
Posted inNews
Early drinking to drunkenness by teens often leads to serious problem by college
Yale researcher Meghan Morean: A short time lag between the teen’s first drink and becoming drunk is a predictor of a serious drinking problem by senior year of college. Teens who have their first drink at an early age and quickly progress to drinking to intoxication are likely to be heavy drinkers and have alcohol-related […]
Posted inNews
Murphy refuses to release credit score, loan documents
The U.S. Senate campaign of Democrat Chris Murphy says it will not release his application for a $43,000 home-equity credit line that Republican Linda McMahon claims was a sweetheart deal from a political ally, Webster bank. Murphy’s campaign spokesman, Ben Marter, responded with a one-word answer when asked by The Mirror if the candidate would […]
Posted inNews
Connecticut lawmakers vote for budget deal
Washington –– All of Connecticut’s House members voted for the six-month “continuing resolution,” which passed the House on a rare bipartisan vote Thursday evening. The House Thursday voted 329-91 for the stop-gap measure that would continue funding the federal government for six months, avoiding another crippling fight and the specter of a government shutdown before […]
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White House: Sequester ‘Deeply Destructive’ to Defense
In response to a demand from Congress, President Obama on Friday released a 394-page list of federal programs that would be cut if lawmakers fail to reach a deficit reduction deal and sequestration, or automatic cuts, is enacted. Few government programs would be spared under sequestration, the report said, but the Pentagon budget would take […]
Posted inEnergy & Environment
State renews permit for Bridgeport Harbor Station Coal Plant
After receiving a record number of comments from the public, the state has renewed the operating permit for Connecticut’s lone coal-fired power plant in Bridgeport. Environmental advocates from groups such as the Sierra Club, the Connecticut Fund for the Environment, and the Bridgeport-based Healthy Connecticut Alliance had worked for months to bring more than 150 […]
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McMahon walks a middle path on abortion
As they search for a wedge issue to blunt the gains Republican Linda McMahon is making among women in the U.S. Senate race, Democrats are turning to McMahon’s overtures to both sides of the abortion debate. McMahon describes herself as pro-choice, but she has won favor in conservative quarters with her embrace of restrictions on […]
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Senate race becomes a toss-up as McMahon batters Murphy
Washington – The national Democratic Party rode in like the cavalry this week to help Rep. Chris Murphy’s campaign for U.S. Senate, but analysts wonder if that’s enough to turn a race that’s been slipping from Democratic hands. It looks like Republican Linda McMahon has drawn blood with her attacks on Murphy and abundant promotion […]