This year may be remembered for last week’s anti-Trump voter revolt or the advance of the #MeToo movement. But in California, 2018 might be remembered for its monster wildfires. The Camp Fire north of Sacramento is the deadliest wildfire in…
Posted: 16 November 2018 [08:32 PM] Posted: 16 November 2018 [08:32 PM] Melania Trump really does care, after all. The president tweets his rogue declarations; his wife takes another route and issues official statements. On Monday, there was a huffing and puffing response from Melania Trump’s spokeswoman to Michelle Obama’s remark that…
Posted: 16 November 2018 [08:32 PM] REPUBLICAN REGISTRAR OF VOTERS AND DEMOCRATIC REGISTRAR OF VOTERS In Bristol, unofficial results were entered into the Secretary of the State’s Election Management System and posted on our website on election night and therefore candidates and the public all knew…
Posted: 16 November 2018 [08:31 PM] Democrats’ renewed control over the House of Representatives will offer an opportunity for bipartisan consensus on one of the country’s most pressing topics - and no, it is not infrastructure this time. The past year has seen an unprecedented…
Posted: 15 November 2018 [08:03 PM] School bus drivers must watch in shock, fear and anger as motorists ignore flashing red lights and extended stop sign arms to pass buses. It happens frequently, despite law enforcement agencies’ focused attempts to stop it. That puts children at…
Posted: 14 November 2018 [09:04 PM] The one year anniversary of New Britain’s fatal police involved shooting is coming up next month. The department completed its non-binding review in February and found “no egregious violations” of police policy occurred on the night five officers shot three…
Posted: 14 November 2018 [09:03 PM] By To The Editor: Dear author of the “f you Ned Lamont” sign, I was thinking about how long it took you to get a big board/bed sheet, spray paint and the time it took to…
Posted: 14 November 2018 [09:01 PM] It is evident that the Catholic Church is incapable on its own of exorcising the scourge of clergy sex abuse. The scandal raged unchecked for decades and, even after it was exposed in 2002 by the Boston Globe, has…
Posted: 14 November 2018 [08:59 PM] The Justice Department has implemented a new strategy for defending President Donald Trump’s most controversial policies: Declare an urgent threat to the executive branch, bypass ordinary judicial procedure and rush straight to the Supreme Court. Over the past few weeks,…
Posted: 14 November 2018 [08:57 PM] Amazon’s expansion of its headquarters to New York City and suburban Washington, D.C., made public just a week after Google’s announcement of a planned expansion in Manhattan, shows that the rich are getting richer: That is, only well-developed urban areas…
Posted: 13 November 2018 [08:46 PM] It’s that time again. Almost all of the leaves have fallen from the trees. Daylight savings time is in effect and this week we could see the first snowflakes of the season. Even though it isn’t officially winter yet -…
Posted: 13 November 2018 [08:44 PM] This week President Trump banned a CNN reporter - Jim Acosta - from the White House after Acosta asked some tough questions during a press conference. CNN has now filed suit in the matter. It was the latest move by…
Posted: 13 November 2018 [08:42 PM] About six months ago, attendees at a Trump rally were so giddy about the president’s masterly diplomatic maneuvering in supposedly convincing North Korea to suspend testing of nuclear weapons that they began to chant “Nobel! Nobel!,” taking even President Donald…
Posted: 13 November 2018 [08:39 PM] Who won the midterm elections? The D team or the R team? Let’s see. The Democrats and the progressive left have got Nancy Pelosi back as Speaker of the House for two years. Maxine Waters is ready to rumble too.…
Posted: 12 November 2018 [08:43 PM] Continuing uncertainty over a few races does not obscure the clear result of the Nov. 6 election: The Democrats have recaptured decisive control of the House of Representatives. Less clear, however, is on behalf of precisely what policy agenda they…
Posted: 11 November 2018 [06:44 PM] Siobhan O’Connor showed real courage. The former administrative assistant for embattled Bishop Richard Malone stepped out of the shadows to help shed light on arguably the darkest period of time in the recent history of the Roman Catholic church. In…
Posted: 09 November 2018 [08:20 PM] Nothing tests character like defeat. President Donald Trump has not had to deal with it much in his brief political career, having smashed through a large field to win the Republican nomination in 2016, followed by a stunning triumph in…
Posted: 09 November 2018 [08:18 PM] The Washington Post WASHINGTON - The 2018 elections began the demolition of the Trump coalition. There remains much work to do. The results in some states were disappointing, and President Trump’s grip on the Republican Party was strengthened. But a…
Posted: 09 November 2018 [08:16 PM] The Washington Post No, the Year of the Woman was not hype. The election returns provide ample reason for those working to shift the gender balance in politics to celebrate. Consider: n Of their seven gubernatorial pickups, four of the Democratic…
Posted: 08 November 2018 [09:03 PM] President Donald Trump’s Wednesday firing of Attorney General Jeff Sessions was not surprising, but it should still be shocking. Sessions’ sin was not that he was insufficiently wedded to the president’s agenda; indeed, the attorney general was perhaps the most…
Posted: 08 November 2018 [08:59 PM] Maybe it was his only way to win Connecticut’s election for governor, but having assured voters during the final weeks of his campaign that no one would have to sacrifice during his administration, either through tax increases or cuts in…
Posted: 08 November 2018 [08:58 PM] The Washington Post WASHINGTON - The midterm elections are finally over, more or less, and we got what we got - Donald Trump is still president. Sorry, but someone had to say it. Now back to the cold realities of…
Posted: 08 November 2018 [08:56 PM] Tuesday’s midterm elections were much more than a national repudiation of President Donald Trump, a reminder that the president is still strong in red states or a return to the divided government that Americans so often favor. They were a…
Posted: 07 November 2018 [08:32 PM] Democratic victories in congressional elections across the U.S. Tuesday have instantly created a new political dynamic in Washington. The country will surely be better off with at least one house of Congress finally willing to exercise oversight of the executive…
Posted: 07 November 2018 [08:30 PM] Nothing could balance out the journalistic embarrassment of Fox News Channel star Sean Hannity appearing at an onstage love fest with President Donald Trump this week at a Missouri campaign rally. But the network’s “decision desk” valiantly gestured in that…
Posted: 07 November 2018 [08:28 PM] Divided government has been the American norm over the last 50 years. It has been our condition 70 percent of the time, and voters have ended every period of unified party control of both Congress and the White House after…
Posted: 07 November 2018 [08:27 PM] From one standpoint, the election results Tuesday night weren’t much of a surprise. Democrats will control the House. Republicans will control the Senate. Which means that partisans of both parties can look forward to the next two years with equal…
Posted: 06 November 2018 [10:06 PM] Speaking in the White House Rose Garden in September 2015, Presidents Barack Obama and Xi Jinping announced a breakthrough. The United States and China pledged that neither nation “will conduct or knowingly support cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property, including trade…
Posted: 06 November 2018 [10:03 PM] Sending 5,200 troops to the border - up to 15,000 ultimately, says President Donald Trump - represents an escalation intended to convey a war footing. And the president’s own words reinforce this. The approaching caravan (actually, more than one)…
Posted: 06 November 2018 [10:02 PM] When the smoke from the midterm election clears, one thing is certain: You will be seeing the name of Robert Mueller a lot more than you have for the past two months, no matter whether the Democrats manage to take…
Posted: 06 November 2018 [10:00 PM] President Donald Trump has run a disgraceful and hysterical campaign vilifying illegal immigrants and refugees - two categories that appear indistinguishable to him. He doesn’t have a positive word to say about any immigrants, even the legal ones. Most of…
Posted: 05 November 2018 [08:44 PM] Who owns the Internet? That is the question at the core of the controversy over whether companies offering essential Web services are right to drive havens of hate offline. This week they booted the social media site Gab after a…
Posted: 04 November 2018 [08:48 PM] The Trump administration’s decision to push Saudi Arabia to bring the war in Yemen to an end and lift its blockade of Qatar is overdue. These were costly misadventures that should have been halted already. Now that the killing…
Posted: 04 November 2018 [08:41 PM] The Washington Post “I am sick and tired of this administration. I’m sick and tired of what’s going on. I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired, and I hope you are, too.” - Joe Biden I’m sick and…
Posted: 04 November 2018 [08:39 PM] Life itself is the greatest human right. Therefore, it’s interesting to see gun violence addressed as a public health issue. Amnesty International did just that in a new report, “In the Line of Fire: Human Rights and the U.S. Gun…
Posted: 02 November 2018 [08:45 PM] Earlier this year President Donald Trump joined both parties in Congress to toss all provisions to restrain deficit spending. They got together and agreed to give big tax cuts and simultaneously to increase spending. “Congress solved their partisan differences by…
Posted: 02 November 2018 [08:44 PM] To The Editor: I never planned on working for Jahana Hayes. In fact, I wanted little to do with the 5th District Democratic primary after the controversial convention. But then I met her. I was invited to a meet…
Posted: 02 November 2018 [08:41 PM] GLEN ALLEN, Va. - Listening to the conversation at Robert Jones’ Parkside Barber Shop and Grooming Lounge, you’d never know we live in a deeply divided country that seems incapable of discussing everyday challenges. Jones, a successful local entrepreneur, hosted…
Posted: 31 October 2018 [07:44 PM] While the nation was focused on migrant caravans, mail bombs and President Donald Trump’s disgusting tweets last week, his administration was making another big change to the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. The new plan would give states…
Posted: 30 October 2018 [08:40 PM] Outdoor retailer Patagonia will close all its stores on Election Day so that its employees can vote. Ride-hailing companies Lyft and Uber will offer free and discounted rides to polling places on Nov. 6. Meat company Tyson Foods has launched…
Posted: 30 October 2018 [08:34 PM] The Washington Post Because voting is voluntary in our country, political activists have to find some way to rev up Americans to do their civic duty. One old standby is calling the next election “the most important in history,” or…
Posted: 30 October 2018 [08:33 PM] On Sunday night, the Boston Red Sox defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers 5-1 to win the World Series in five games. This finished an 11-3 playoff run in which the Red Sox dispatched the New York Yankees, the Houston Astros…
Posted: 30 October 2018 [08:31 PM] If there were any remaining doubts that the rise of right-wing nationalism is a global phenomenon, Brazil has ended them. On Sunday, the country decisively chose as its next president Jair Bolsonaro, a former army officer who crusaded against the…
Posted: 29 October 2018 [07:51 PM] Are firearms injuries rising, falling or holding steady in the U.S.? It’s hard to tell, and that’s an enormous obstacle to understanding and preventing them. There is no reliable national database for firearm injuries. The Centers for Disease Control and…
Posted: 28 October 2018 [08:38 PM] Tampa Bay Times The effects of climate change are coming harder and faster, according to a recent report by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In fact, a child born today - if greenhouse…
Posted: 28 October 2018 [08:36 PM] There’s one piece of baseball news that may have slipped past most local fans. The Cleveland Indians will retire the most offensive logo in professional sports by the time the team opens training camp in February. “Chief Wahoo,” the grinning,…
Posted: 26 October 2018 [10:29 PM] Ideas have consequences, which is why we are not just going to ignore President Donald Trump’s proposal for cutting the middle class’s taxes by 10 percent, on top of the tax cuts already delivered by the $1.2 trillion 2017 plan…
Posted: 26 October 2018 [09:27 PM] Why is there such growing fascination with ancestry? Not everyone can trade on it for professional and political advancement as Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren has been doing, falsely claiming association with an oppressed ethnic group, Native Americans. Expecting to triumph…
Posted: 26 October 2018 [09:26 PM] ATLANTA - By engaging in voter suppression, Stacey Abrams’ opponents are paying her the highest possible compliment. The former Democratic leader of the state House of Representatives, Yale Law School grad and the first African-American woman to be nominated by…
Posted: 26 October 2018 [09:26 PM] The gesture was small, but it contained multitudes. At a raucous rally in Montana last week, a Trump supporter - juiced up by the president’s crude praise of a congressman who body-slammed a reporter - looked directly at CNN reporter…
