President Donald Trump on Tuesday tried to calm the wave of criticism that has pummeled him since his ignoble Monday news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki. “I have full faith and support for America’s great intelligence agencies,”…
Posted: 18 July 2018 [04:51 PM] Posted: 17 July 2018 [06:31 PM] Many local youths, teens and young adults are engaging in risky behavior and the results could end in tragedy, according to authorities. Cliff jumping into the Wassel Reservoir on the Southington end of the dam and swimmers taking the leap…
Posted: 16 July 2018 [04:20 PM] To The Editor: Every election or primary season we are faced with the difficult decision of who will represent us the best in government. For the Democratic primary on Aug. 14, the choice is clear for the 9th Senate District:…
Posted: 16 July 2018 [04:19 PM] They say, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” but can you help them learn to love a new family? The Connecticut Humane Society in Newington believes all older pets - whether they are dogs or cats, rabbits…
Posted: 13 July 2018 [07:07 PM] There is nothing new about the complaints President Donald Trump voiced Wednesday about spending by NATO members and Germany’s importing of Russian gas - remarks that got a summit meeting intended to be a show of transatlantic unity off to…
Posted: 12 July 2018 [05:55 PM] We are rightfully concerned about and should be vigilant when it comes to preventing child abuse. But something that often flies under the public radar is elder abuse. We must be ever alert to that, too. A recent report from…
Posted: 11 July 2018 [06:05 PM] To The Editor: My Gov. Malloy has done marvelous things for Connecticut, and no one is thanking him. I’m tired of people criticizing politicians. Governor Malloy rebuilt the economy of the city of Stamford. He has been rebuilding the economy…
Posted: 11 July 2018 [06:04 PM] To The Editor: Erin Stewart says she’s running for lieutenant governor because Republicans in Connecticut can’t win with “two white men” on the ticket. Talk about the worst kind of identity politics! That’s a statement right out of the Democrats’…
Posted: 11 July 2018 [06:04 PM] To The Editor: Funny thing – Dannel Malloy, Connecticut’s tax-and-spend governor, has something notably in common with the Republican mayor of New Britain, Erin Stewart. Both have the distinction of imposing the second highest tax increases ever on state and…
Posted: 11 July 2018 [06:03 PM] President Donald Trump’s former chief economic adviser, Gary Cohn, spoke out against his former boss’ trade policies recently. He said the result of Trump’s trade war with China as well as traditional U.S. allies could cancel out the economic benefits…
Posted: 10 July 2018 [07:09 PM] For decades, the U.S. system of higher education has operated on a unique premise: To make college affordable for a broad swathe of Americans, student debt must be an almost inviolable obligation. Now, authorities are starting to question that assumption.…
Posted: 09 July 2018 [03:51 PM] You know these are interesting times in the U.S. economy when it’s a positive sign that the unemployment rate just went up. On Friday, the Labor Department reported that the jobless rate ticked up from 3.8 percent in May to…
Posted: 08 July 2018 [08:49 PM] The sudden call by some Democrats to abolish ICE - U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency whose multipronged mission includes deportation - makes a better bumper sticker than a blueprint for policy. Like eradicating the Internal Revenue Service, the…
Posted: 06 July 2018 [05:58 PM] A conviction for a low-level crime shouldn’t come with a life sentence. But many Pennsylvanians who undergo background checks when they seek jobs or housing are haunted by such past indiscretions for years after they commit them. That is going…
Posted: 05 July 2018 [07:46 PM] According to the old saw, anyone who wishes to maintain respect for sausages and laws should not see how either are made. Congress has just finished validating that aphorism by engaging in the sorry every-five-years exercise known as drafting a…
Posted: 04 July 2018 [04:24 PM] Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who on Sunday was elected in a landslide to be Mexico’s next president, is a product of the political left, but his victory is part of the global story of rising populist leaders. Like many of…
Posted: 02 July 2018 [06:03 PM] Buried in the Trump administration’s 132-page plan to overhaul the federal government is a significant policy shift that has received little attention: a proposal to transfer responsibility for background investigations for security clearances from the Office of Personnel Management to…
Posted: 01 July 2018 [08:27 PM] Friday’s Opinion section in the Capital consisted of only 56 words, centered around five names. It was a spare and eloquent – and heartbreaking - tribute to those lost in the tragedy that had befallen this storied newspaper the day…
Posted: 01 July 2018 [08:26 PM] Can the government require doctors to tell patients about alternative approaches to treating a medical condition? Can it insist that people unlicensed to offer medical care disclose that they lack licenses? According to the conservatives on the Supreme Court,…
Posted: 01 July 2018 [08:25 PM] Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is just following the rules. In 2013, then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., used a simple-majority vote to change the Senate’s rules, allowing confirmation of judicial nominees to non-Supreme Court posts by the same…
Posted: 01 July 2018 [08:24 PM] By the account of unions and their supporters, the Supreme Court struck a massive blow to public-sector unions Wednesday that will hobble them politically. Fortunately for them, the evidence is to the contrary. By siding in favor of the plaintiffs…
Posted: 29 June 2018 [07:00 PM] To The Editor: I was already angry when Don Naples, Republican alderman approached me at the end of a four hour hearing. The first half was unbearable. I had jotted in my notes, “parade of prostitutes.” Our mayor had misappropriated…
Posted: 29 June 2018 [06:58 PM] Here’s at political tip: If you are going to expose your utter fecklessness and irrelevancy, do it on the day the most critical member of the Supreme Court decides to retire. That’s what House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, R-Wis., did…
Posted: 28 June 2018 [06:29 PM] U.S. politics was fractured and its system of government under stress even before Justice Anthony Kennedy said on Wednesday that he’d retire from the Supreme Court at the end of July. The announcement promises new extremes of partisan rancor, in…
Posted: 27 June 2018 [06:58 PM] To The Editor: Mr. John Larson, please hear the people of the United States who willfully support keeping children and families together. It’s heartbreaking to fathom families being separated and the emotional upheaval this imposes on the entire family.…
Posted: 27 June 2018 [06:56 PM] To The Editor: On May 29, 2018 I was honored to accept the Democratic Party’s nomination for state representative for the 78th District (Bristol / Plymouth). As a life-long Connecticut resident, I view this position as both an opportunity to…
Posted: 27 June 2018 [06:54 PM] To The Editor: Hats off to the mayor, police chief and the City Council for pushing the new city ordinance against aggressive panhandling in Bristol. The Bristol police have done a great job in Bristol especially in the North Street…
Posted: 27 June 2018 [06:52 PM] Since he announced his campaign for high office in 2015, President Donald Trump has waged a relentless battle against the dignity of American institutions, from the legal system to Congress, while tearing down, often viciously, any individual who might stand…
Posted: 26 June 2018 [07:49 PM] By: Bloomberg View As one Trump administration trade policy backfires, another looks set to. On Monday, Harley-Davidson said it would shift some production out of the U.S. in order to mitigate the impact of European Union tariffs…
Posted: 25 June 2018 [07:46 PM] Over the weekend there was a fair bit of argument over the decision by a small restaurant in Lexington, Virginia, not to serve dinner to President Donald Trump’s press secretary. It wasn’t the first time recently that strong political feelings…
Posted: 25 June 2018 [07:39 PM] By: Bloomberg View Illinois last month became the 37th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. The support of one more state would be enough, on the face of it, to get the measure passed. The ERA,…
Posted: 24 June 2018 [08:54 PM] In 1988, teachers union leader Albert Shanker had an idea: What if teachers were allowed to create a school within a school, where they could develop innovative ways to teach dropouts and unmotivated students? The teachers would get the permission…
Posted: 24 June 2018 [08:52 PM] Journal Inquirer President Richard Nixon was not as dishonest about the Watergate burglary and coverup as President Trump has been in recent days about the separation of children from the adults bringing them into the country illegally. This practice was…
Posted: 24 June 2018 [08:51 PM] One November night in 1988, I crossed the Soviet border with my family, leaving behind friends, relatives, property and life as we knew it - forever. I was 8, traveling with my parents and 4-year-old brother. Between the four of…
Posted: 24 June 2018 [08:49 PM] Bloomberg View Walter Mondale has some advice for his fellow Democrats: Focus all your energy on this fall’s congressional contests, not the 2020 presidential race, because if you don’t retake the House of Representatives first, you’ll probably be dead two…
Posted: 22 June 2018 [08:29 PM] Editor’s note: This column was originally distributed by Cagle Cartoons in 2013. Things are mighty heated these days. Tempers are flaring and minds are closed. Here’s the solution: the wit and wisdom of Will Rogers. “The short memory of…
Posted: 22 June 2018 [08:29 PM] WASHINGTON - “Moderate Republicans are the people who are there when you don’t need them.” It was one of former Rep. Barney Frank’s many devastating zingers, and it certainly applies to the fiasco unfolding in the House of Representatives on…
Posted: 22 June 2018 [08:28 PM] In a New York Times column this week, Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg wrote that President Donald Trump’s policies are pushing “ideologically moderate” Republicans away from the GOP. According to Greenberg, “The harder the president bangs these drums, the more Democrats…
Posted: 22 June 2018 [08:28 PM] The performance of the United Nations’ Human Rights Council is quite mixed. It has proved a useful platform to air the plight of the injured and dispossessed, but it has also been vulnerable to manipulation by the oppressors. That said,…
Posted: 21 June 2018 [09:33 PM] The Washington Post The controversy over race and admissions at elite educational institutions is heating up. Harvard University is under pressure to stop discriminating against Asian-Americans, who make up a smaller percentage of its student body (22.2 percent) than their…
Posted: 21 June 2018 [09:32 PM] The Washington Post It is fitting that President Donald Trump has been forced into retreat by babies. Cruelty should never be mistaken for strength. Trump’s own confusion on that point was evident on Wednesday, as he announced that he would…
Posted: 21 June 2018 [09:32 PM] Within living memory there was frequent passenger railroad service north and south out of Hartford, and the railroad company, the New York, New Haven, and Hartford, known simply as the New Haven, was as famous as any. Thanks to Hartford-born…
Posted: 21 June 2018 [09:32 PM] Let’s leave the Nazi comparisons where they belong - to history. In an example of historical ignorance or political lunacy, Michael Hayden recently fired off a tweet blasting the Trump administration for removing the children of illegal immigrants from their…
Posted: 20 June 2018 [07:06 PM] They say no good deed goes unpunished. But what if the deeds weren’t good at all? The New York attorney general’s office is no stranger to going after charities that have behaved badly. But current Attorney General Barbara Underwood’s extensive,…
Posted: 20 June 2018 [07:04 PM] At this time of the year, drivers are accustomed to hearing the plea “drive safely and defensively.” Of course, that reminder is appropriate every day of the year. But information contained in a June 1 Wall Street Journal article adds…
Posted: 20 June 2018 [07:02 PM] I recently noticed a string of interesting news stories, all with the same theme. Domino’s Pizza is donating money to 20 U.S. cities, to be used for fixing potholes and cracked roads. Salesforce has donated $1.5 million to reduce homelessness…
Posted: 20 June 2018 [07:00 PM] The Washington Post The latest policy proclamation from President Donald Trump: “We are going to have the Air Force and we are going to have the ‘Space Force’ - separate but equal, it is going to be something so important.”…
Posted: 19 June 2018 [06:53 PM] By: William Wixon, Kensington To The Editor: Everyone knows and realizes that our state government is in a downward spiral of financial disaster. Why is this happening? In simple terms, spend more than you receive. The submissive…
Posted: 19 June 2018 [06:51 PM] By: The Washington Post President Donald Trump’s policies at America’s southern border are cruel and unnecessary. This is widely recognized: Many Republicans are now among those objecting to the measures. For once, the president needs to heed…
Posted: 18 June 2018 [07:00 PM] By: The Washington Post Like all drug scourges, the fentanyl epidemic that claims so many lives on a daily basis is a matter of supply and demand. The demand, alas, is made in America. The supply, by…
