By CHRIS POWELL Nice guy that he was, Joseph D. Duffey, who died last week at age 88, was not a terribly adept politician. He was not outgoing or a glad-hander but a soft-spoken Protestant clergyman. But from 1967 to…
Posted: 01 March 2021 [07:08 PM] Posted: 26 February 2021 [08:59 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Everyone is entitled to be sick and tired of the virus epidemic, and no one is more entitled than Governor Lamont, whose administration has been consumed by it. Most people were happy with the administration's handling of…
Posted: 24 February 2021 [04:07 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Connecticut should prohibit pensions for state and municipal government employees, not because they are bad people or especially undeserving but for several solid policy reasons. First, most of the taxpayers who pay for those pensions don't enjoy…
Posted: 22 February 2021 [07:50 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Does recognizing that the "war on drugs" is a failure and that people are entitled to be left alone in their personal lives require not just legalizing marijuana and taxing it heavily but also putting state government…
Posted: 19 February 2021 [09:13 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Having just gotten big raises amid an economic depression with horrible unemployment in Connecticut, the state employee unions have proclaimed that they won’t consent to Governor Lamont’s budget proposal to freeze state employee salaries for a while.…
Friday Ficks: Why you need a white rabbit now Posted: 18 February 2021 [08:59 PM] One of the most iconic psychedelic rock songs is "White Rabbit," written by Grace Slick and released when she joined Jefferson Airplane…
Posted: 17 February 2021 [09:22 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Without taking much notice, Connecticut lost a hero of journalism and justice the other day: Donald S. Connery, 94, who lived in Kent for almost 60 years even as he traveled and reported from around the world…
Posted: 12 February 2021 [09:02 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Nearly everyone will forever remember some admired or even beloved teachers whose insight, enthusiasm, and caring pointed students in the right direction. Of course there were and are some mediocre, incompetent, and even malicious teachers too, but…
MAYOR'S COLUMN: Celebrating African Americans who made a difference in our city Posted: 10 February 2021 [09:21 PM] The Mayor’s Column is back here in the New Britain Herald! I took a little break, but I am excited to use…
Posted: 10 February 2021 [09:15 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Democrats ran against Herbert Hoover for 20 years after 1932. Now they seem to be planning to run against Donald Trump for another 20. The Democrats' second attempt to impeach the former president even though he has…
Posted: 08 February 2021 [09:06 PM] By CHRIS POWELL With Governor Lamont discouraging "broad-based" tax increases, many fellow Democrats in the General Assembly are planning to raise taxes around the edges. Most industrious may be Senate President Pro Tem Martin M. Looney of New Haven. Looney…
Posted: 05 February 2021 [09:14 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Maybe Connecticut should be grateful to the Desegregate CT organization for having just provided a map detailing how local zoning regulations make it almost impossible to build multifamily housing in most of the state. But didn't nearly…
Posted: 03 February 2021 [08:56 PM] By CHRIS POWELL From the legislation they have placed before the General Assembly's Education Committee, you might think that state Reps. Jeffrey A. Currey, D-East Hartford, Jillian Gilchrest, D-West Hartford, and Nicole Klarides-Ditria, R-Seymour, just awoke from long comas. Their…
Posted: 01 February 2021 [08:24 PM] By CHRIS POWELL President Biden's new education secretary, Miguel Cardona, lately Connecticut's education commissioner, says he will give priority to the issue of college loan debt. About 45 million U.S. residents, nearly 14 percent of the population, owe an estimated…
Posted: 27 January 2021 [08:51 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Nearly everyone in Connecticut knows that its capital city, Hartford, is a mess, and that its largest city, Bridgeport, is too. Yet for saying so about Hartford in an essay in The Wall Street Journal on New…
Posted: 25 January 2021 [05:14 PM] By CHRIS POWELL At least President Biden has some sense of his high office, knows how to behave in public, and unlike his predecessor, Donald Trump, is not likely to become a cosmic embarrassment on account of his demeanor. No,…
Posted: 19 January 2021 [07:33 PM] By CHRIS POWELL As he skips the inauguration of his successor and shuffles off to his resort in Florida, has Donald Trump destroyed the Republican Party? Some political observers think so and of course Democrats hope so. Trump's petulant and…
Posted: 18 January 2021 [08:46 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Last week this column examined the government pension racket in Connecticut through the example of the "retirement" of New Haven Police Chief Tony Reyes, who is only 49 and is giving up his city salary of $170,000…
Posted: 13 January 2021 [08:49 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Everyone agrees that Tony Reyes has been a great police chief in New Haven, having been appointed in March 2019 after nearly two decades of rising through the ranks of the police department. But the city will…
Posted: 11 January 2021 [04:31 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Does any state do more posturing against racism than Connecticut does only to get such meager results? A week ago West Haven's City Council joined the 19 other municipalities in the state that have declared racism a…
Posted: 06 January 2021 [08:47 PM] By CHRIS POWELL When Bob Stefanowski was the Republican nominee for governor two years ago, he was mocked by Democrats for being light on the issues - for advocating repeal of the state income tax without specifying how to reduce…
Posted: 04 January 2021 [08:55 PM] By CHRIS POWELL After a cowardly absence of nine months, the General Assembly reconvenes this week. Though legislators may not recognize it, the first question facing them is whether their new session is to be one of substance or merely…
Posted: 01 January 2021 [08:52 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Employees of Connecticut's largest newspaper, the Hartford Courant, cleaned out their desks the other day as the newspaper left the building at 285 Broad St. where it had operated for 70 years. It was well reported that…
Posted: 30 December 2020 [08:38 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Many in Connecticut, including most of its news organizations, are gushing about President-elect Joe Biden's choice of state Education Commissioner Miguel Cardona, a Meriden native, to be secretary of the U.S. Education Department. News reports say the…
Posted: 23 December 2020 [08:53 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Frank Capra's 1946 film, "It's a Wonderful Life," to be broadcast again tonight at 8 by NBC television, is loved most for its personal message of discovery at Christmas: that its hero's life has been, unbeknownst to…
Posted: 22 December 2020 [07:44 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Legions of the politically correct are insisting that President-elect Joe Biden's wife, Jill, be given the honorific title "Doctor" because she holds a doctorate degree in education, which she received largely on the basis of a mediocre…
Posted: 21 December 2020 [08:43 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Government in Connecticut is often mediocre but it usually excels at clearing the roads during and after a snowstorm like last week's. Maybe this is because while some failures are easily overlooked or concealed, there is no…
Posted: 20 December 2020 [08:14 PM] By CHRIS POWELL While the master state government employee union contract's ban on layoffs expires next July, no serious changes in personnel management that might favor the public can be expected. There are two reasons for this. First, the remainder…
Posted: 16 December 2020 [06:57 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Back when children attended school in Connecticut, before administration was forfeited to the teacher unions, and the kids had their first lessons about government, they were taught the division of responsibility. That is, the federal government is…
Posted: 14 December 2020 [08:15 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Now that the Democratic majorities in the General Assembly are increasing as a result of last month's election, visions of sugarplums dance again in the heads of those who think that "property tax reform" and spending more…
Posted: 11 December 2020 [08:46 PM] By CHRIS POWELL As was inscribed on the pedestal of the statue of college founder Emil Faber in the movie "Animal House," "Knowledge is good." But knowledge can be overpriced, as the growing clamor about college student loan forgiveness soon…
Posted: 09 December 2020 [08:27 PM] By CHRIS POWELL America's oldest continuously published newspaper is now the country's newest paper without an office of its own. The Hartford Courant announced last week that it is terminating its lease on the building it has occupied…
Posted: 07 December 2020 [09:01 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Having been there, done that, and gotten a T-shirt reading "My Party Abandoned Me," Governor Lamont seems to have given up on imposing tolls on Connecticut highways to fortify the state's transportation infrastructure. But having just increased…
Posted: 06 December 2020 [07:56 PM] By CHRIS POWELL While Governor Lamont remarked the other day that state government doesn't have enough money to rescue every business suffering from the virus epidemic and the curtailment of commerce, most people think the federal government has infinite money…
Posted: 30 November 2020 [08:47 PM] By CHRIS POWELL With Connecticut sure to struggle with the virus epidemic for many more months and state government sinking deeper into the financial disaster caused by the epidemic and government's response to it, it is amazing that the most…
Posted: 27 November 2020 [08:41 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Many people want to get out of Hartford, just as many people already have gotten out, the city having lost a third of its population since 1950. The problem for the people who still want to get…
Posted: 25 November 2020 [08:02 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Amid the growing panic fanned by news organizations about the rebound in the virus epidemic, last week's telling details were largely overlooked. First, most of the recent "virus-associated" deaths in Connecticut again have been those of frail…
Mayor's Column: Important for us to stay safe during the holidays Posted: 24 November 2020 [09:28 PM] With the holidays approaching, it is important to remember that while the sound of joy and the smell of snow might be…
Posted: 23 November 2020 [08:00 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Not so long ago censoriousness was a phenomenon of the political right. Mere liberals were called communists and spies and drummed out of their jobs. The political right sought to ban books and writers as subversive or…
Posted: 22 November 2020 [09:15 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Maybe it will turn out to be only a fluke, but amid the renewed panic about the virus epidemic there is some interesting detail in the monthly death statistics of the state Department of Public Health. In…
Posted: 18 November 2020 [04:39 PM] By CHRIS POWELL His handling of the virus epidemic has doubled Governor Lamont's public approval rating, giving him more fans than detractors. But judging from recent developments that are being overshadowed by the epidemic, the governor could be forgiven if…
Posted: 16 November 2020 [08:36 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Many teachers around the country are cheering the forthcoming change in national administration because Betsy DeVos will be replaced as secretary of the U.S. Education Department. DeVos, an heiress and philanthropist, has been a fan of charter…
Posted: 12 November 2020 [08:13 PM] By CHRIS POWELL After the supposedly slow response by Eversource Energy and United Illuminating to the widespread electricity outages in Connecticut caused by the tropical storm in August, there were calls for state government to take over the electricity distribution…
Posted: 10 November 2020 [04:29 PM] By CHRIS POWELL After warning that the U.S. Postal Service might sabotage the vast increase in voting by mail for last week's national election, leading Democrats in Connecticut are renewing their calls for allowing everyone to vote by mail just…
Posted: 08 November 2020 [07:36 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Everybody in Connecticut is tired of the virus epidemic, and no one is more entitled to be tired of it than Governor Lamont. It has devastated the finances of state government, commandeered its management, crippled education at…
Posted: 03 November 2020 [09:01 PM] By CHRIS POWELL When he was inaugurated as president of the University of Connecticut a year ago, Thomas C. Katsouleas made a grand gesture. He said that henceforth the university would waive tuition for new students from families with annual…
Posted: 02 November 2020 [07:51 PM] By CHRIS POWELL For four years any disparaging story about President Trump has been touted by national news organizations even if its source was anonymous. Of course given his business record and character it is easy to believe almost any…
Posted: 01 November 2020 [07:52 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Sailing against a heavy political wind, Republican candidates for the General Assembly have been heartened by the vigorous endorsements they are getting from police unions, which this year have broken away from the government employee union apparatus…
Posted: 29 October 2020 [09:11 PM] By CHRIS POWELL Every day Governor Lamont conscientiously reports the "positivity rate" of coronavirus tests administered in Connecticut, and news organizations report it as if the state's fate hangs on the data. Lately the "positivity rate," the percentage of tests…
Posted: 29 October 2020 [09:07 PM] By ROBERT A. SCALISE, JR. In Connecticut, the Probate Courts handle a variety of matters including guardianships, emancipation and adoption of children, conservatorships, mental health commitments and guardianships of persons with intellectual disabilities. However, when most people think of “Probate”…
