Author Archives: cxpowell

By Chris Powell Now it will be for a jury to decide whether state Trooper Brian D. North is guilty of manslaughter or was justified in fatally shooting Mubarek Soulemane more than two years ago after the mentally ill 19-year-old hijacked a car at knifepoint in Norwalk and led police on a 30-mile chase beforeContinue reading “Trooper isn’t the only cause of mentally ill man’s death”

By Chris Powell While Bridgeport’s troubled schools, filled with students neglected at home, perform terribly, the city’s Board of Education has put another holiday on its school calendar: Islam’s Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan. The board did so in the name of diversity and religious and ethnic tolerance at the request ofContinue reading “School holiday craze shows the wrong kind of tolerance”

By Chris Powell Anyone paying attention to state government last week might have been shocked by the disclosure from the state Office of Fiscal Analysis that Governor Lamont’s proposed contract with the state employee unions will raise state government’s labor expenses by nearly $2 billion over four years. Announcing the contract six weeks ago, theContinue reading “Did governor know or care what new contract will cost?”

By Chris Powell Beautiful as Connecticut is in spring, the state will remain a target-rich environment for the political action committee whose formation was reported by the Connecticut Mirror last week: Parents Against Stupid Stuff. After all, even as Parents Against Stupid Stuff was being announced, the state Senate voted to qualify strikers for unemploymentContinue reading “Connecticut sure could use clamor against ‘stupid stuff’”

By Chris Powell Someday, if the governor and state legislators ever tire of coddling the state employee unions and if the president and Congress ever tire of coddling investment banks and military contractors, maybe they should note what happened recently at Silver Lane Elementary School in East Hartford. Most of East Hartford’s students are fromContinue reading “Many kids can’t see well, and government can’t either”

By Chris Powell Even though he has decided against seeking re-election, state Treasurer Shawn Wooden has discovered a way to fix state government’s unclaimed property program, which his office supervises. In January the Connecticut Mirror’s Andrew Brown and Kasturi Pananjad reported that during the last 20 years the program had seized $2.3 billion in theContinue reading “Wooden’s idea great but late; and Lamont fudges on taxes”

By Chris Powell Does Hartford’s school system inform a student’s parents when it learns that the student may be dealing with gender dysphoria? That’s the important question raised by the system’s suspension of a school nurse who recently wrote on social media that school staffers keep such issues secret from parents. The school system isContinue reading “Hartford schools in cover-up on gender dysphoria issue”

By Chris Powell Legislators of both parties in the General Assembly are congratulating themselves on the bipartisan juvenile justice bill that has come out of the Judiciary Committee, and well they should. For the legislation will do no more than provide the illusion of action, and thus avoid the controversy about juvenile crime. Lately thatContinue reading “Victory for repeat offenders; and nutty Indian mascot law”

By Chris Powell Another day, another study finding that Connecticut state employees are paid so much better than private-sector workers. The latest study was done by a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, Andrew Biggs, who holds a doctoral degree from the London School of Economics. Biggs’ conclusion matches that of similar studies inContinue reading “Connecticut pays high price to satisfy state employees”

By Chris Powell Connecticut may be paying the Sikorsky helicopter division of military contractor Lockheed Martin as much as $250 million to keep its facilities in the state for the next 20 years — an average of more than $12 million per year — if the company gets major new helicopter contracts from the U.S.Continue reading “Bar military contractors from accepting corporate welfare”