Author Archives: cxpowell

By Chris Powell What are the qualifications of Erick Russell, the Democratic state convention’s nominee for state treasurer in next week’s primary election? Russell’s record in public life is slim. His campaign’s internet site says he is a lawyer with a “prestigious” firm in New Haven, where he has done legal work for the treasurer’sContinue reading “Democratic treasurer rivals strive for flashy irrelevance”

By Chris Powell While Governor Lamont and Connecticut’s members of Congress seek re-election by touring the state distributing money for supposedly wonderful new projects and programs, what was already a catastrophe is getting worse and hardly being noticed. It’s the failure of education in the cities and especially New Haven, whose Board of Education lastContinue reading “Politicians distribute goodies but ignore education disaster”

By Chris Powell Guilt tripping through American history has become almost as popular for vacationers as Florida. It’s a vacation from current political reality. In Connecticut the latest guilt trip involves the executions carried out here in the 1600s by the earliest European colonists against 11 of their number accused of witchcraft. The first knownContinue reading “Connecticut should feel guilty about the present, not the past”

By Chris Powell Connecticut state government has had worse managers than Ned Lamont, but nobody should be much impressed by the huge financial surplus over which he is presiding — more than $4 billion, equivalent to a fifth of state government’s annual budget. For the surplus is not a product of any astounding new efficienciesContinue reading “Connecticut budget surplus is just the flip side of inflation”

By Chris Powell Each major political party has its fruitcakes at the national level, though the Republican ones, like U.S. Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Madison Cawthorn, get far more attention than the Democratic ones since news organizations overwhelmingly favor the Democrats. Last week two Democratic equivalents of Greene and Cawthorn, Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez andContinue reading “Klarides can’t trigger more craziness than Blumenthal”

By Chris Powell Nobody can blame Themis Klarides for liking the idea of term limits. She is the Republican state convention’s choice to challenge U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat who has been in elective office for 37 years and at age 76 is seeking a third six-year term in the Senate, at the endContinue reading “Klarides belatedly concludes you can hold office too long”

By Chris Powell All abortion all the time continues to be the theme of Connecticut’s Democratic Party. Last week a candidate in the party’s primary election for state treasurer, Dita Bhargava, pledged in a campaign commercial to use the state’s pension funds to badger companies into guaranteeing their employees access to abortion. If she isContinue reading “Should abortion be measure of state treasurer’s performance?”

By Chris Powell Ancient Rome’s foremost historian, Tacitus, who often sat at the center of the empire’s government, observed, “The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.” Today he might add that the nation with ever-more laws is probably becoming not just more corrupt but more dishonest and stupid as well. The recentContinue reading “Why is society falling apart? And court is right about guns”

By Chris Powell Supposedly Connecticut’s new paid family and medical leave program is a rousing success after its first six months of giving people cash benefits financed by a half-percent increase in the state income tax. The program reports that as of May 31 it had paid more than $80 million to 19,700 of theContinue reading “Paid medical leave program isn’t really such a success”

By Chris Powell Especially for politics, “never let them see you sweat” is usually a good rule, but last week Governor Lamont’s campaign for re-election broke it spectacularly. The Lamont campaign responded hysterically to the most pointed video commercial yet broadcast by the Republican nominee for governor, Bob Stefanowski. The commercial noted the irony ofContinue reading “Sharp Stefanowski video ad stings governor into hysteria”