Author Archives: cxpowell

By Chris Powell Has Connecticut state government been turned around, going from huge deficits to huge surpluses, because of Governor Lamont’s great leadership, as the commercials for his re-election campaign claim? The state has had worse governors but its much improved financial position has little to do with anything state government has done. The improvementContinue reading “State turned nothing around but just refinanced failure”

By Chris Powell Secrecy triumphed again this month in “public” education in Connecticut. First the Connecticut State Colleges and University System refused to make available to the Journal Inquirer the personnel files of three officials who were sued in an employment discrimination case whose settlement recently cost the state $775,000. The newspaper was seeking toContinue reading “Accountability keeps losing to public schooling’s secrecy”

By Chris Powell How righteous Connecticut Attorney General William Tong sounds as he rails against M&T Bank for its defective integration of accounts from People’s United Bank, which M&T acquired in April. Tong also fears that M&T isn’t preserving as many jobs from People’s United as planned. These problems shouldn’t be so surprising. Both banksContinue reading “Tong is too late in bank mess; and no one confronts UConn”

By Chris Powell According to those who supervise Connecticut’s elections, voter fraud is not a problem in the state — or at least not outside Bridgeport, where questions of honesty in elections often arise. Last week the state Elections Enforcement Commission began investigating a complaint that a worker for the campaign of a candidate forContinue reading “Connecticut has voter fraud; and fly illegals to New Haven”

By Chris Powell Ranked-choice voting has an endorsement from Governor Lamont, a Democrat, and an open mind from his Republican challenger, Bob Stefanowski, so it is doubly worth discussing during this election campaign. The ranked-choice idea applies to election contests with three or more candidates, contests that present the risk that the candidate with theContinue reading “Connecticut makes a case for ranked choice in elections”

By Chris Powell If distributing more money was the solution to the state’s serious social problems, Connecticut would have solved them long ago. Instead state government now has another commission, the Commission on Community Gun Violence Intervention and Prevention, which met for the first time last month and is to advise the state Public HealthContinue reading “Gun violence with urban poor shouldn’t be such a mystery”

By Chris Powell Call it an opportunistic feint in the “culture war” if you want, but the “Parental Bill of Rights” proposed last week by the Republican nominees for governor and lieutenant governor, Bob Stefanowski and state Rep. Laura Devlin, raises important issues Connecticut should stop evading. Several of the Republican proposals are vague. TheContinue reading “Republicans’ bill of rights for parents is just a start”

By Chris Powell Interviewed Sept. 4 by Dennis House on WTNH-TV8’s “This Week in Connecticut,” U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, an advocate of unrestricted abortion, got away with a big fib. House asked: “What do you say to a pro-life voter who may be turned off by your stance and may say, ‘Why can’t we have someContinue reading “Blumenthal dissembles on his late-term abortion bill”

By Chris Powell How racist is Enfield? Town government’s overreaction to a recent disgraceful but trivial incident is giving the impression that the town has become the northern headquarters of the Ku Klux Klan, even though the incident could have happened anywhere. It occurred as members of the Enfield High School football team were knockingContinue reading “‘Community conversation’ on race fails to get relevant”

By Chris Powell Reactions last week to the inadvertent confession of the Greenwich assistant principal who admitted hiring only young and liberal teachers and excluding Catholics, the better to propagandize students and induce them to grow up voting Democratic, have been just as revealing as the confession itself. State Attorney General William Tong seemed moreContinue reading “‘Vigilante’ journalism nails what the regular kind missed”