The Trump administration is publicly calling out China for attempting to influence U.S. politics ahead of the midterm elections. Privately, the U.S. government is looking past November as Beijing expands its already significant capability to interfere in American democracy over…
Posted: 21 September 2018 [10:40 PM] Posted: 21 September 2018 [10:40 PM] WASHINGTON - For those insisting that Republican senators take Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations against Judge Brett Kavanaugh seriously, one aspect of the conversation is particularly infuriating: the notion that the timeline established by the GOP for completing this process is…
Posted: 21 September 2018 [10:39 PM] At their two debates the candidates for governor offered nothing to homeowners in the northeastern part of the state whose home foundations are disintegrating because of faulty concrete. The candidates would like insurance companies, mortgage-holding banks, and the federal government…
Posted: 21 September 2018 [10:39 PM] President Donald Trump’s planned nomination of Nellie Liang to the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors, which oversees everything from interest-rate policy to financial stability, is a little surprising. She’s admirably well-qualified and in every way a good choice. Trump hasn’t…
Posted: 20 September 2018 [09:07 PM] The National Park Service has floated the idea of whether it should charge fees to groups that hold protests on the National Mall. The reason cited by officials for this possible change is the cost to the federal government of…
Posted: 20 September 2018 [09:06 PM] Polish President Andrzej Duda’s offer to call a military base “Fort Trump” if the U.S. agrees to set one up in his country was, of course, a joke - but not entirely. For Poland, President Donald Trump’s transactional approach to…
Posted: 20 September 2018 [09:04 PM] It’s hard to publicly allege misconduct by a powerful man. No woman wants to be known primarily as a victim of harassment or, worse, assault. It’s humiliating. We - women who have gone public - are so much more than…
Posted: 20 September 2018 [09:02 PM] Following through on previous threats, President Donald Trump announced on Monday new tariffs on $200 billion worth of imports from China, in addition to levies previously imposed on $50 billion worth of goods. The taxes, which go into effect…
Posted: 19 September 2018 [08:51 PM] President Donald Trump has demanded the immediate declassification of portions of an order allowing the surveillance of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, text-message records from several of Trump’s chief whipping boys at the FBI and interview records with Bruce…
Posted: 19 September 2018 [08:47 PM] Almost any accusation against a 17-year-old boy may be plausible. But plausibility is not fairness, even if fairness long ago lost any standing in this country’s politics, and there are big questions of fairness in the accusation by the college…
Posted: 19 September 2018 [08:45 PM] The stories of chaos, craziness and betrayal going on inside the Trump White House are nothing to worry much about. White House staffers attempting to influence, question or thwart a president’s ideas or goals are as old as George Washington,…
Posted: 19 September 2018 [08:43 PM] President Donald Trump’s defenders responded to the news of Paul Manafort’s plea deal on Friday with the usual refrain: His case has nothing to do with the Trump campaign or allegations that it colluded with Russia in 2016. They’re wrong.…
Posted: 17 September 2018 [08:38 PM] The Justice Department wants states to go after technology giants for antitrust violations. Or does it want states to go after companies for stifling free speech? It’s hard to tell from the department’s statement announcing it will convene a meeting…
Posted: 17 September 2018 [08:37 PM] Columnist Running for governor, Democrat Ned Lamont faults Republican Bob Stefanowski for refusing to specify where he would cut state government spending to compensate for the enormous tax cutting Stefanowski implausibly pledges to do. The problem is that Lamont also…
Posted: 17 September 2018 [08:35 PM] By Paul Waldman After the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings gave the country a window into workplace sexual harassment - and featured a committee composed entirely of white men skeptically questioning the African-American woman detailing what she suffered…
Posted: 17 September 2018 [08:35 PM] Terrified of alienating the activist bases of their respective parties, Democrats and Republicans in Congress rarely even try to compromise anymore. So it’s a welcome development that two members of the House of Representatives from different parties are willing to…
Posted: 16 September 2018 [07:37 PM] The most significant part of the Affordable Care Act, itself the most significant piece of social legislation passed in decades, was its expansion of Medicaid. The idea was that no one should go without health insurance because they can’t…
Posted: 16 September 2018 [07:33 PM] President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday promising to punish anyone attempting to meddle in U.S. elections, including with “measures that could be capable of devastating an interfering country’s economy,” according to an administration description. For a presidency marked…
Posted: 16 September 2018 [07:32 PM] The New York Times took the unusual step of publishing an anonymous OpEd, from a senior Trump administration official, which both painted a horrifying portrait of an impulsive, amoral president who “continues to act in a manner that is detrimental…
Posted: 16 September 2018 [07:31 PM] Illustrating the truism that once you’ve lost credibility it’s hard to get it back, Republicans joined with Democrats in dismissing President Donald Trump’s executive order on Russia as too little, too late. The Post reported: “The order would allow Trump…
Posted: 14 September 2018 [06:46 PM] Perhaps you’ve heard: Nike and Colin Kaepernick have teamed up to create a potent advertising campaign, a defiant political statement applauding the former NFL quarterback for kneeling during the national anthem to protest police killings of unarmed black men. You…
Posted: 14 September 2018 [06:45 PM] Bad news has been piling up quickly in state government this month. Among the examples: A department head at the University of Connecticut at Storrs resigned after getting caught approving more than $100,000 in travel expenses and paid time off…
Posted: 14 September 2018 [06:44 PM] PORTLAND, Maine - Exceptional dangers require exceptional and sometimes unusual responses. This was the spirit animating the volunteers at a phone bank Tuesday night in Portland. They were asking citizens to urge their state’s popular Republican senator, Susan Collins, to…
Posted: 14 September 2018 [06:44 PM] Here’s the thing about campaigning as an outsider, as Donald Trump did in 2016: If you win the election, you are the person in charge. You are expected to accomplish what you said you would do, or make a darn…
Posted: 13 September 2018 [08:19 PM] Among the most troubling of the many untruths advanced by President Donald Trump is his repeated insistence that the federal government did a good - indeed, a “tremendous” - job responding to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. A recent study…
Posted: 13 September 2018 [08:17 PM] To The Editor: On Tuesday Sept. 11, 2018 I attended the Global War on Terror Monument Dedication Ceremony at Central Park Plaza in New Britain. In the front row attending the ceremony was an elderly veteran proudly wearing his…
Posted: 13 September 2018 [08:15 PM] Earlier this summer, Robert Runcie, the superintendent of schools in Broward County, Florida, sent a back-to-school message to the “families and community” of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. His missive mentioned nothing about teachers or books or curriculum. Instead it…
Posted: 13 September 2018 [08:13 PM] Bloomberg Opinion It may be human nature to want to assign blame for terrible events - and since climate change became part of public consciousness, it’s a frequently faulted for natural disasters. Is Hurricane Florence our fault for emitting climate-changing…
Posted: 13 September 2018 [08:11 PM] Ten years ago, amid a worsening subprime mortgage crisis, the U.S. government did what few have dared: It allowed a major global investment bank, Lehman Brothers Holdings, to file for bankruptcy. Within days, the shock waves crippled the nation’s largest…
Posted: 12 September 2018 [07:36 PM] Should children be allowed to play tackle football? With scientific studies showing a link between the sport and traumatic brain injuries that lead to lasting health problems, that question is being asked with more frequency and urgency across the country.…
Posted: 12 September 2018 [07:33 PM] The Washington Post Charming. Accomplished. Visionary. And, if you believe the highly credible accusations, one more thing: abusive. The first three qualities of CBS chief executive Les Moonves seemed as though they would allow him to stay at the peak…
Posted: 12 September 2018 [07:32 PM] Imagine being blamed for defending your integrity. Then understand that being attacked for speaking up is part of daily life for black women. See April Ryan, Maxine Waters, Kamala Harris, Susan Rice and Michelle Obama for a few examples of…
Posted: 12 September 2018 [07:29 PM] To The Editor: A word of thanks is due. Recently, the mayor of New Britain announced that the City would no longer consider striking a deal with Tilcon, Inc. to destroy a valuable watershed vital to the region’s water needs.…
Posted: 12 September 2018 [07:28 PM] The Cleveland Plain Dealer For the third year in a row, the Cleveland Clinic has been named the nation’s No. 2 hospital in U.S. News & World Report rankings. Its numerical score - based on 16 specialties…
Posted: 11 September 2018 [09:15 PM] Colleges that have banned hard alcohol say the step has helped combat some of the most pernicious effects of campus drinking. They report less consumption, fewer alcohol-induced medical transports, hospitalizations and arrests, as well as a decrease in binge drinking…
Posted: 11 September 2018 [09:11 PM] By To The Editor: Do you know the biggest and most robust bloc of Connecticut voters are over the age of 50? Therefore, we have a voice and need to make sure we use it in…
Posted: 11 September 2018 [09:10 PM] Dear Granddaddy, do you have any advice for a brand new freshman who is back at the bottom again? Damitrus - A ninth-grader Damitrus, first let me begin by saying that I’m pretty impressed with…
Posted: 11 September 2018 [09:05 PM] If you, like me, streamed 22 hours straight of Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing, you might have noticed something: It was often presented not so much as a fight between liberalism and conservatism, or even constitutional originalism vs. activism, but as…
Posted: 11 September 2018 [09:04 PM] The antithesis of Donald Trump and his administration can be studied, at least for those willing to drive 150 miles south from Atlanta, among magnolias, towering pines and seemingly endless fields of cotton, peanuts - and dreams. Jimmy and…
Posted: 10 September 2018 [08:22 PM] It would be hard to find many federal judges more sympathetic to the Trump administration’s immigration policies than Andrew Hanen, a Republican appointee who sits in Brownsville, Texas, on the border with Mexico. From that outpost of the U.S. District…
Posted: 10 September 2018 [08:21 PM] Bloomberg Everyone seems to agree on one thing about the anonymous Donald Trump administration official whose New York Times op-ed was Topic A for 36 hours, which is a pretty long time in Trump-calibrated politics: He or she deserves no…
Posted: 10 September 2018 [08:18 PM] Can a tweet stop another bloodbath in Syria? Evidently not. Hours after President Donald Trump used his favorite medium to warn Russia not to join in a new offensive on the northern province of Idlib, saying it would be “a…
Posted: 10 September 2018 [08:16 PM] Make no mistake: Facebook is feeling the pressure. Scarred by criticism that it enabled Russian meddling during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the social media giant summoned its biggest tech peers to a summit late last month, meeting behind…
Posted: 10 September 2018 [08:13 PM] To The Editor: Years ago, Rep. Joe Aresimowicz ran a campaign on reducing state government costs, by reviewing and eliminating duplication of services between departments, and by looking at private/public partnerships to help taxpayers save money. I can’t think…
Posted: 10 September 2018 [08:11 PM] To The Editor: I read that ESPN “...will air the national anthem this season only when doing so feels newsworthy...” CBS and Fox have made similar decisions while NBC has not finalized how to handle the anthem.” Where is their…
Posted: 09 September 2018 [09:08 PM] The two candidates running for the Democratic Party nomination for governor - incumbent Andrew Cuomo and challenger Cynthia Nixon - staged their one and only debate at Hofstra University on Long Island. They did Upstate New York voters a…
Posted: 09 September 2018 [09:05 PM] The Washington Post BOSTON - The day before Ayanna Pressley rattled national Democrats by overwhelming Rep. Mike Capuano, a popular 20-year incumbent, in last Tuesday’s primary, she brought her youthful canvassers to the campaign’s Jamaica Plain headquarters to fire them…
Posted: 09 September 2018 [09:04 PM] Nobody likes to be called “dumb,” especially if they are from the South. If you’re not from there, you may not understand this sensitivity, but it has existed for generations. One part of being a Southerner has been the…
Posted: 09 September 2018 [09:02 PM] The Washington Post A sexual-abuse report in Pennsylvania in mid-August created an earthquake within the Catholic Church. A court ordered last week that downloadable blueprints for 3-D-printed guns be banned from the Internet. And on Wednesday, oral arguments begin in…
Posted: 09 September 2018 [09:00 PM] Florida is facing a serious teacher shortage, and it’s no surprise given the low pay, low career esteem, long hours and bureaucratic burdens of standardized testing and paperwork. Making the state’s classrooms a more attractive place to work will require…
