Category Archives: Uncategorized

By Chris Powell Another spectacular embarrassment for the University of Connecticut, and thus for the state itself, exploded last week — the $11 million wrongful termination award for former men’s basketball coach Kevin Ollie. It was compounded because there is no one really in charge at the university these days. University President Thomas Katsouleas resignedContinue reading “Working at UConn is great but getting fired is better”

By Chris Powell Having supported the futile U.S. war in Afghanistan throughout their congressional careers, helping to flush $2 trillion down the toilet of that primitive and ungovernable land, Connecticut U.S. Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy this week flew off to Ukraine in the hope of getting their country into a war with RussiaContinue reading “Blumenthal and Murphy pursue a war to replace Afghanistan”

By Chris Powell Despite its two years of painstaking effort, Connecticut’s Police Transparency and Accountability Task Force last week recommended little to increase transparency and accountability in police work. The task force proposes some good things: standardizing police policies and record keeping and requiring policies and department censuses to be posted on the internet, asContinue reading “Police transparency study is evasive and even nutty”

By Chris Powell Governor Lamont and state Attorney General William Tong, both Democrats, are pressing in federal court to restore a lucrative tax break for the rich. But somehow they are escaping criticism from those in their party who clamor for taxing the rich more. The governor and attorney general have asked the U.S. SupremeContinue reading “Connecticut Democrats prize a huge tax break for the rich”

By Chris Powell Teachers and nurses in Connecticut who are government employees, along with employees of nursing homes, whose industry is mostly funded by government, are feeling so overworked because of the virus epidemic that their allegiance to Governor Lamont and the Democratic Party is coming into question. Surveying leaders of the teachers and nursesContinue reading “On whom will Connecticut’s epidemic resentments fall?”

By Chris Powell Bribing people with their own money is a standard technique of politics, and with a state election coming up, Connecticut’s Democratic and Republican leaders are already at it. Governor Lamont, who will be nominated by the Democrats for a second term, says he is likely to propose increasing the property tax creditContinue reading “Tax cuts will achieve little without spending cuts too”

By Chris Powell How, some readers ask, can this column, written by a mere layman, assert that the COVID-19 vaccines aren’t very effective? First, it’s because the COVID-19 vaccines are not really vaccines at all as vaccines were defined prior to the current epidemic. That is, vaccines previously were defined by the U.S. Centers forContinue reading “Vaccine definition was changed as COVID-19 shots weakened”

By Chris Powell Connecticut occasionally sees state Treasurer Shawn T. Wooden touting state government’s college savings program in television commercials with two young actors impersonating his sons. Since the commercials are financed by a contractor that helps run the program for the treasurer’s office, this is essentially public money. As the commercials portray Wooden asContinue reading “Treasurer’s ads should have exposed the ripoff he runs”

By Chris Powell For months the prevailing view about the forthcoming election for governor has been that Governor Lamont’s handling of the virus epidemic in Connecticut would be a big advantage for him, since the state was getting along better than other states and, in exercising emergency powers, Lamont has been less imperious than otherContinue reading “Epidemic might not benefit governor politically anymore”

By Chris Powell Governor Lamont could have found worse things to do with the $75 million in federal emergency aid he ordered distributed last week as a bonus to poor households receiving the state’s earned income tax credit. On average those households probably have suffered more financially from the long virus epidemic, since many ofContinue reading “Much better ways to spend epidemic emergency money”