Author Archives: cxpowell

By Chris Powell Connecticut state government is about to spend another $30 million pursuing another mistaken premise. The money will go for “hero pay,” grants of as much as $1,000 to people in “essential” occupations in the private sector who stayed on the job during the worst of the recent virus epidemic when much ofContinue reading “Allowed to keep working, ‘heroes’ already got reward”

By Chris Powell Late-developing enthusiasm among devotees of former President Donald Trump is being given as the cause of Leora Levy’s unexpected victory in the primary for Connecticut’s Republican U.S. Senate nomination over Themis Klarides, the former state representative who had the endorsement of the party’s state convention. Trump endorsed Levy just a few daysContinue reading “Trump didn’t defeat Klarides; it was her lack of inspiration”

By Chris Powell How did the infamous “pizza sex” assignment get into a middle school classroom in Enfield in January? And was a Hartford school nurse, suspended in March, telling the truth when she wrote on social media that the school system conceals from parents the gender dysphoria suffered by their children? The school systemsContinue reading “Enfield and Hartford schools are striving to deceive parents”

By Chris Powell Many criminal defendants, the Connecticut Mirror reported the other day, can’t “claw their way out” of pre-trial detention because they can’t afford even the small cash bails required of them. It’s easy to see cash bail as a problem since, according to the Mirror, more than 40% of the people held inContinue reading “Why should repeat criminals be exempt from bail rules?”

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”