Column The easiest thing for any government to do is to give the voters what they want today, and worry about paying for it tomorrow. That basic tendency explains much of the process that landed Puerto Rico in the equivalent…
Posted: 19 June 2017 [10:31 PM] Posted: 19 June 2017 [10:27 PM] Columnist Parents, I really do not believe there is only one best way to raise our kids. However, since I also believe that all of us parents want to raise their kids to the best of their abilities, I figured…
Posted: 19 June 2017 [09:15 PM] Looking for someone to make sense of the Washington scandals? It’s always smart to turn to a senator from Maine. In the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is looking at Russian influence on the 2016 presidential election, Maine’s Susan…
Posted: 18 June 2017 [09:41 PM] The time we have is at best an unknown. We run around doing daily routines thinking everything in our world is fixed in stone. A charity event and a ballfield with a bunch of guys practicing for an annual charity…
Posted: 13 June 2017 [08:44 PM] One of President Barack Obama’s last major policies was the “fiduciary rule,” a Labor Department regulation aimed at alleged conflicts of interest in the professional advice that millions of Americans receive about their tax-advantaged retirement accounts. To cut…
Posted: 13 June 2017 [08:42 PM] Columnist The New York Daily News’s front page on Friday morning screamed “LIAR” in huge type over a photo of President Donald Trump. USA Today’s banner headline seconded the motion: “Comey calls Trump a liar.” On cable channels, in broadcast…
Posted: 13 June 2017 [08:41 PM] We tend in modern economies to take progress for granted and debate only its pace. This is not true with respect to air travel times. A look at airline time tables reveals that today the 8:26 am flight from Boston…
Posted: 11 June 2017 [09:20 PM] In about 10 days, we will be experiencing the longest day of the year, June 21, the summer equinox. The planet has reached a tilt angle so as to keep the light of day longer - it stays light for…
Posted: 10 June 2017 [10:46 PM] While this year’s regular session of the General Assembly has little to show for itself but more gambling - another casino and more off-track betting - it was positive in one respect: the recognition by Governor Malloy and the unusually…
Posted: 10 June 2017 [10:44 PM] Has anyone out there written the book “The Art of the Presidency”? If so, please send Donald Trump a copy. Overnight. Our billionaire president knows what to say or do when he’s making a business deal or running a big…
Posted: 10 June 2017 [10:43 PM] The Trump Administration, like its predecessors, has shown an apparent appetite for the use of force overseas. The “mother of all bombs” dropped on Syrian troops, saber-rattling toward North Korea, proposed deployments of U.S. forces in 10 or more countries…
Posted: 10 June 2017 [10:43 PM] WASHINGTON - “If only he would stop tweeting.” Those words came from a friend of mine named “Jack,” quite possibly President Trump’s biggest fan. A former secret service agent, Jack is your typical die-hard Trump supporter. That is to…
Posted: 10 June 2017 [10:42 PM] Over the past decade and a half, tolerance for polygamy has more than doubled among the American public. A similar trend applies to human cloning. Stunning as they are, these findings from the latest Gallup survey of moral opinion in…
Posted: 09 June 2017 [07:59 PM] THE Washington Post Former FBI director James Comey, testifying under oath Thursday to the Senate Intelligence Committee, painted a picture of a president grossly abusing his executive authority. According to Comey, President Donald Trump pressured him to declare…
Posted: 09 June 2017 [07:58 PM] Bloomberg View We learned a few things from former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony on Thursday morning before the Senate Intelligence Committee. - Earlier reports about Comey’s memos about his interactions with President Donald Trump left open the possibility that…
Posted: 28 May 2017 [09:00 PM] About three years ago, my wife and I went on a trip to Maryland. There were two tour buses of us. We went to the Civil War battlefield memorial, Antietam. Antietam was one of the major battles of…
Posted: 27 May 2017 [07:11 PM] Columnist WASHINGTON - President Trump’s budget demonstrates the costs of accepting lies as a normal currency in politics, broken promises as a customary way of doing business, false claims of being “populist” as the equivalent of the real thing, and…
Posted: 27 May 2017 [07:09 PM] Columnist Expedia is now booking hotels in Cuba. American Airlines is flying American tourists from Miami to Havana. For more than a year, American-owned cruise lines have been hauling U.S. citizens by the thousands to the Castro Brothers’ beautiful socialist…
Posted: 27 May 2017 [07:08 PM] Columnist The schism at Fox News between real reporting and deplorable propaganda programming was never more vivid than on Wednesday. On full display was the divide that afflicts the right more broadly - that between decent, honest political discourse and…
Posted: 27 May 2017 [07:06 PM] Columnists Progress in financial regulation is often two steps forward and one step back. This isn’t always a bad thing. Sometimes taking a step back presents healthy opportunities to cut waste, simplify rules and bring a different perspective to public…
Posted: 27 May 2017 [07:05 PM] Columnist Details of President Donald Trump’s first budget have now been released. Much can and will be said about the dire social consequences of what is in it and the ludicrously optimistic economic assumptions it embodies. My observation is that…
Posted: 26 May 2017 [08:14 PM] Columnist On Sept. 7, 2016, Donald Trump made a specific promise to an audience at the Philadelphia shipyards: “to build a Navy of 350 surface ships and submarines.” On March 2, Trump, now president, added to the specificity of that…
Posted: 26 May 2017 [08:13 PM] Columnist One of the lucky things about being rich is that you automatically become handsome, your jokes are hilarious, and politicians treat you with fawning deference. On the other hand, the unlucky thing about being poor is that … well,…
Posted: 26 May 2017 [08:12 PM] Columnist Poor NATO. After all of the hoops summit organizers reportedly jumped through to accommodate President Donald Trump and his anemic attention span, he definitely was not on his best behavior. Trump was the party guest whom no one really…
Posted: 22 May 2017 [09:45 PM] Something very beneficial for us parents to learn early on is that as parents we are our own bosses. Yup. Believe it or not, we really are our own bosses. Cool, huh? You see, in some ways we actually get…
Posted: 20 May 2017 [08:12 PM] Columnist Governor Malloy says negotiations over the state budget, which began this week, have a long way to go, but after wobbling on taxes he has accomplished something remarkable. He has pushed his party’s majority in the General Assembly, the…
Posted: 20 May 2017 [08:11 PM] Columnist If I were Donald Trump’s chief of staff, I’d just break his thumbs. That’s what Reince Priebus should do - and then maybe buy a roll of duct tape. From Day One of his administration, President Trump has hurt…
Posted: 20 May 2017 [08:09 PM] Columnist She was a virgin when he raped her, impregnated her, and then beat her. She miscarried. A devout Catholic, she mourned her own pain less than that lost life. No amount of comfort from the priest made her tears…
Posted: 20 May 2017 [08:05 PM] Columnist Which best describes your view of America? Everyone pays an equal share? Or, everyone pays his fair share? Both sound reasonable. One hinges on equality, the other on fairness - two principles we generally embrace. But as I wrote…
Posted: 19 May 2017 [09:28 PM] THE Washington Post Donald Trump’s political career arguably began with the full-page advertisements he purchased in The Post and several other newspapers in September 1987 in order to denounce Saudi Arabia, along with Japan, for “taking…
Posted: 19 May 2017 [09:26 PM] Columnist The choice of the next FBI director generated bitter political debate only 48 hours ago. Now, with the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel, it’s almost beside the point. Mueller, a much-respected former director of the bureau, was…
Posted: 14 May 2017 [09:04 PM] This political cycle has gone to the stage of social entertainment. The Republican house delegation had a triumphal procession after they voted down Obamacare and got their version of the Affordable Care Act voted into law. This is phase…
Posted: 13 May 2017 [08:44 PM] Columnist WASHINGTON - For those lately bereft of leadership, the past few days have provided both a respite and a reason for hope. Make that two reasons - two women - Sally Yates and Condoleezza Rice. It’s likely that neither…
Posted: 13 May 2017 [08:41 PM] Columnist WASHINGTON - Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is one of the shrewdest politicians of his generation. But by speaking Wednesday on the Senate floor in defense of President Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey, McConnell made what is…
Posted: 13 May 2017 [08:40 PM] Columnist I wish every child could be blessed to have a mother like mine. When my five sisters and I were babies in her womb, she never took so much as an aspirin for a headache - never ingested anything…
Posted: 13 May 2017 [08:37 PM] Columnist Despite imposing during the last six years Connecticut’s two largest tax increases, state government is running its third straight big annual deficit, this week causing Governor Malloy to spend the emergency reserve and to suspend some financial aid to…
Posted: 13 May 2017 [08:33 PM] Columnist A half-dollar hardly counts as money these days - it won’t even buy a cup of coffee. But pssssst… here’s an amazing half-dollar bargain for you: A first-class postage stamp. For 50 cents, you get the stamp, 3 cents…
Posted: 12 May 2017 [08:18 PM] Columnist I give up. Ten minutes after I started watching the Senate intelligence committee hearings Thursday morning, I got so frustrated I started looking for a good cartoon show. What’s so aggravating about these staged Congressional hearings is that you…
Posted: 12 May 2017 [08:17 PM] THE Washington Post The FBI is in trouble and must be protected - from the White House, first and foremost. Last year’s Hillary Clinton email investigation put the agency in the middle of a political fight. President Donald Trump…
Posted: 12 May 2017 [08:11 PM] Bloomberg View The early returns are in, and they’re bad news for the Republican gamble to pass a flawed health-care alternative to Obamacare. Democratic candidates are on the attack, and Republicans are dissembling. In a couple of special congressional elections,…
Journeys With Jim: How to protect against, and deal with, ticks Posted: 10 May 2017 [10:13 PM] COLUMNIST With all the time I spent in the deer woods last fall, I can scarcely remember a day that I found…
Posted: 08 May 2017 [09:44 PM] Doesn’t it look like the Germans are good at everything? It even appears the Germans are even pretty good at parenting too. For example, somehow German parents have figured out a way to consistently have their 15-year-old children score well…
Posted: 07 May 2017 [09:42 PM] The first hundred days of the Trump administration have come and gone, and we all are still here, the world seems to still be orbiting the sun, and God is still in his heaven. What we have seen is a…
Posted: 06 May 2017 [08:03 PM] Columnist WASHINGTON - It should have been obvious, but I missed it: Steve Bannon has been banished and Dennis Rodman is whispering in the president’s ear. OK, maybe not, but it could explain Donald Trump’s sudden admiration for North…
Posted: 06 May 2017 [08:01 PM] Columnist WASHINGTON - If words could bring legal actions, “populism” would sue for aggravated abuse. And President Trump would be a co-defendant. In a season of dispiriting tidings, few habits have been more infuriating than the ease with which political…
Posted: 06 May 2017 [08:00 PM] Columnist As state government’s finances collapsed this week, House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz said the mood of the House Democratic majority caucus was approaching “depression.” But what took them so long? The performance of state government has depressed the public for…
Posted: 06 May 2017 [07:57 PM] Columnist Remember when late-night TV used to be entertaining - and actually funny? You used to be able to turn off the tube and go to bed with a smile on your face. Steve Allen, Johnny Carson, Merv Griffin, Joan…
Posted: 01 May 2017 [09:33 PM] Parents, we always try to tell our kids to do the right thing and choose wisely, don’t we? And don’t we also try with all of our might, energy and heart to get our children to become good citizens who…
Posted: 29 April 2017 [10:17 PM] Columnist Governor Malloy’s objective with education this year was doubly revolutionary. First, he sought to slash state financial aid to most school systems and transfer it to city school systems, partly as a response to the latest court decision that…
Posted: 29 April 2017 [10:13 PM] Columnist I admit I clearly was not born with the patience gene. As a kid my mother was always saying to me, “Patience, patience, patience.” Today my wife Colleen is always saying the same thing: “Mike. Patience, patience.” It’s no…
