By ELLEN ZOPPO-SASSU The long Labor Day weekend signals the end of summer. For some in our community, however, it is just…
Posted: 06 September 2020 [08:44 PM] Column
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Sunday 07/05/2020
MAYOR'S COLUMN: Summer isn't canceled, it's different Posted: 05 July 2020 [08:29 PM] By ELLEN ZOPPO-SASSU As we come off what is usually a celebratory and carefree summer weekend, Bristol is trying to get back…
Friday 07/03/2020
Posted: 03 July 2020 [03:05 PM] The woman’s suffrage movement was in full swing when the Great Flu of 1918 hit. They decided to have their annual convention anyway. They allowed only delegates, and spaced the chairs four feet apart, but they caught a lot…
Sunday 05/31/2020
MAYOR'S COLUMN: It's time to have a talk about racism Posted: 31 May 2020 [08:44 PM] Recently, we have been bombarded with disturbing images from Georgia, Central Park and most recently Minneapolis, where George Floyd died…
Monday 05/04/2020
MAYOR'S COLUMN: Bristol continues to show resilience and ability to adapt during pandemic Posted: 04 May 2020 [09:46 AM] Over the past eight weeks, we have been inundated with data and numbers and graphs. The information can be overwhelming.…
Wednesday 04/15/2020
Posted: 15 April 2020 [08:23 PM] Most of us have never experienced anything like the current COVID-19 pandemic in our lifetimes. The closest analogy many people think of in connection with the pandemic is that of a war. Indeed, a number of individuals have likened it…
Sunday 03/29/2020
MAYOR'S COLUMN: COVID-19 and Bristol's response Posted: 29 March 2020 [03:49 PM] By Ellen Zoppo-Sassu It’s not what you say in a crisis. It’s what you do. In the last two weeks…
Friday 03/13/2020
Posted: 13 March 2020 [07:52 PM] We could use some Irish wit and wisdom right now. Here’s a good start: “You’ll never plow a field by turning it over in your mind.” That’s a lesson well-taught by the many Irish immigrants, including my great-grandfather, who boldly…
Friday 03/06/2020
Posted: 06 March 2020 [08:03 PM] For months, establishment and center-left Democrats faced a seemingly intractable problem. Moderate and establishment-friendly candidates were staying in the race, each hoping for the opportunity to try to beat Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in a one-on-one primary fight. But by…
Posted: 06 March 2020 [08:00 PM] For almost a year, politicians in Washington have talked about the need to fix the problem of surprise medical billing. But, per usual, they haven’t done anything about it. It shouldn’t be this hard. To review: the bidding -…
Sunday 03/01/2020
Posted: 01 March 2020 [08:26 PM] March marks the kick-off of the city encouraging all of its residents to answer the census to ensure we have a complete count. Obtaining a full, fair, and accurate count of everyone is essential for representation and federal funding. Invitations…
Friday 02/28/2020
Posted: 28 February 2020 [07:31 PM] By The Washington Times If Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred hated baseball and wanted to destroy it, he wouldn’t be acting any differently. America’s pastime needs new leadership, stat. Begin with Mr. Manfred’s pathetic reaction to the…
Posted: 28 February 2020 [07:27 PM] This is a scary moment for centrist and pro-Israel Democrats. Sen. Bernie Sanders’s overwhelming victory in the Nevada caucuses, coupled with the disastrous debut of Michael Bloomberg in last week’s Las Vegas debate, has forced the party’s establishment to confront…
Thursday 02/27/2020
Posted: 27 February 2020 [07:34 PM] The U.S. equity market finally is taking notice of the coronavirus, which now is spreading from China to other countries and increasing the risk of a shock that could cause a U.S. recession. So what are the implications for the…
Wednesday 02/26/2020
Posted: 26 February 2020 [08:00 PM] Columnist Connecticut’s members of Congress, all Democrats, are upset - some almost apoplectic - about President Trump’s using his emergency power to divert military appropriations away from nuclear submarine and jet-fighter procurement to help finance the wall he is having…
Posted: 26 February 2020 [07:56 PM] On Friday, February 21, 2020 CCARC hosted its annual Legislative Breakfast in partnership with a dozen community non-profits, including Community Mental Health Affiliates (CMHA). The New Britain Herald’s coverage of this important event aptly portrays the abysmal reality Connecticut…
Monday 02/24/2020
Posted: 24 February 2020 [08:49 PM] Pete Buttigieg, one of the surviving Democratic presidential candidates, goes from up to down to sideways in his pursuit of the elusive 2020 nomination. The former South Bend mayor was up in Iowa and New Hampshire but is struggling in…
Friday 02/21/2020
Posted: 21 February 2020 [07:10 PM] Columnist Amy Klobuchar’s results in Nevada, Feb. 22, and South Carolina, Feb. 29, will likely be more modest than her surprisingly strong finishes in New Hampshire and Iowa. Yet, the senior senator from Minnesota might have the best chance of…
Posted: 21 February 2020 [07:08 PM] The significance of two events that have been upstaged this week by the Hebrew media’s incessant coronavirus coverage cannot be overemphasized-particularly with the fast approach of the March 2 Knesset elections. One was the rejection of an appeal by an…
Thursday 02/20/2020
Posted: 20 February 2020 [08:02 PM] “I’ve got this thing, and it’s f---ing golden,” said then-Governor Rod Blagojevich of Illinois in 2008, referring to his ability to fill the Senate seat of President-elect Barack Obama. “And I’m just not giving it up for f---ing nothing.” We…
Monday 02/17/2020
Posted: 17 February 2020 [07:40 PM] Columnist How could Connecticut’s Democratic state legislators, the majority in the General Assembly, most humiliate themselves? Hold their caucuses in public with journalists invited? Publish transcripts of their conversations with special interests? Maybe a pie-throwing contest? Those might be good…
Monday 02/10/2020
Posted: 10 February 2020 [07:55 PM] For more than 200 years, our republic has endured, not only because of the wisdom of our Founders and the brilliance of our Constitution, but because of the generations of patriotic Americans who have had the courage to risk their…
Posted: 10 February 2020 [07:54 PM] Columnist It started Sunday night with an exciting and hard-fought Super Bowl game, which I was happy to see end with the Kansas City Chiefs defeating the San Francisco 49ers. Then the next day came the Iowa caucus, aka the…
Friday 02/07/2020
Posted: 07 February 2020 [07:38 PM] The headline about a terror attack read “London stabbing suspect was recently released from prison.” That “suspect” had been released about a week ago after serving half of his sentence of three years and four months for terror offenses. And…
Monday 02/03/2020
Posted: 03 February 2020 [07:55 PM] Columnist It doesn’t matter whether the impeachment trial of President Trump is already over or it drags on for months. Two-thirds of the U.S. Senate is never going to find the president guilty of the House Democrats’ vague and bogus…
Sunday 02/02/2020
MAYOR'S COLUMN: Bristol is going to enjoy the 'Roaring 20's' Posted: 02 February 2020 [02:23 PM] While we don’t have a crystal ball at City Hall, we do have a sense of some of the good news that…
Friday 01/31/2020
Posted: 31 January 2020 [07:47 PM] Columnist Few people care if men want to dress up as women or women as men. For most such people it’s not a lark but a deep psychological issue likely to cause them some trouble throughout their lives. They are…
Posted: 31 January 2020 [07:46 PM] At some point, the national Democratic Party’s leadership will discover a backbone and summon up the courage to sever its connection to Hillary Clinton. Continued eye-rolling and hand-wringing each time Clinton delivers another critique of the party’s current field seeking…
Sunday 01/19/2020
Posted: 19 January 2020 [07:49 PM] Columnist With Democratic state senators scrambling to assemble 18 votes to support imposing highway tolls on big trucks, their majority leader, Norwalk Sen. Bob Duff, declared at a forum last weekend that it’s “a big myth” that state government has…
Posted: 19 January 2020 [07:48 PM] After its 2000 decision in Bush v. Gore, Justice David Souter reportedly “wept” when the role of the Supreme Court was raised in determining the outcome of the presidential election. The court continues to grapple with the legacy - and…
Posted: 19 January 2020 [07:46 PM] In a surprise move, the Russian government headed by Dmitry Medvedev resigned Wednesday. Medvedev had served as prime minister since 2012 and had often been mentioned as a potential successor to President Vladimir Putin should he leave office in 2024,…
Friday 01/17/2020
Posted: 17 January 2020 [08:24 PM] Conventional wisdom has emerged that former vice president Joe Biden’s lead with black voters is due in large part to older black voters who are familiar with the former lawmaker. Since he launched his campaign, multiple polls have regularly shown…
Posted: 17 January 2020 [08:22 PM] Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred’s long, forceful, impressively-first-person-authored statement on the Houston Astros’ sign-stealing scandal that has roiled baseball this offseason mentions 14 specific human beings by name. Two of them are the reporters who broke the story in…
Monday 01/13/2020
Posted: 13 January 2020 [08:17 PM] Columnist Did you miss the news? I’m talking about the big war between the U.S. and Iran that Democrats and the liberal media were hoping and maybe even praying would explode in the Middle East this week and prevent the…
Friday 01/10/2020
Posted: 10 January 2020 [07:33 PM] Overblown alarm over reasonable gun-safety laws proposed in statehouses across the country has led to a movement by various local governments declaring themselves Second Amendment “sanctuaries” - vowing to establish local jurisdictions where state gun laws that they view as…
Posted: 10 January 2020 [07:31 PM] The much-discussed collapse in teenage driving in the U.S. seems to have ended a few years ago. But the less-discussed recovery, which I wrote about last year, seems to be over, too. Newly released data from the Federal Highway Administration…
Friday 01/03/2020
Posted: 03 January 2020 [07:28 PM] As 2019 has come to a close and another year of projects, developments, and new initiatives come to fruition, I wanted to take a moment to highlight some of my top goals for the New Year. While there are many…
Posted: 03 January 2020 [07:25 PM] “I have always found comfort in the confines of a book or manuscript,” Sonny Mehta, the editor in chief of Alfred A. Knopf, said in 2018 as he accepted the Center for Fiction’s Maxwell E. Perkins Award for Lifetime Achievement.…
Wednesday 01/01/2020
Posted: 01 January 2020 [06:32 PM] By The Washington Post The Kremlin might know more about conversations between President Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani and others involved in the Ukraine gambit that led to Congress’ impeachment inquiry than congressional investigators themselves. The reason for this…
Posted: 01 January 2020 [06:30 PM] With a new decade starting shortly, it’s time for conscientious columnists to undergo their self- administered decennial performance reviews. I’ll start - and try to keep it focused. For the past 10 years, I’ve waged a quixotic counteroffensive against electric-car…
Posted: 01 January 2020 [06:28 PM] The 2010s will go down in history as a contradictory period at the Supreme Court. The decade featured one liberal decision - the gay marriage case, Obergefell v. Hodges - that will be read as long as the justices’ opinions…
Friday 12/27/2019
Posted: 27 December 2019 [01:48 PM] Cagle Cartoons Do I owe someone an apology for not taking a more active role in the iconic cultural, technological and political developments of the 2010s? I had good intentions of being a full participant in the decade; but other…
Posted: 27 December 2019 [01:47 PM] Special to The Washington Post Last Saturday in West Palm Beach, Florida, in remarks to a group of young supporters, President Donald Trump road-tested a talking point that appeared to be aimed at changing the narrative around his December impeachment:…
Wednesday 12/25/2019
Posted: 25 December 2019 [07:21 PM] By Jennifer Rubin The Washington Post In six weeks, Iowans will gather in schools, community centers and other locales to vote for the Democratic presidential nominee. The number of people who turn out for an evening to talk presidential politics…
Posted: 25 December 2019 [07:16 PM] Special To The Washington Post The Christianity Today editorial supporting the removal from office of President Donald Trump is a remarkable and important document. It is also courageous. Widely read and widely respected, Christianity Today is thoughtful, its tone is…
Monday 12/23/2019
Posted: 23 December 2019 [02:00 PM] The Washington Post Americans who listened to the speeches by House Republicans on Wednesday got an earful of crazy. They heard truly nutty and hysterical rants comparing impeachment to Pearl Harbor or insisting impeachment was less fair than the…
Posted: 23 December 2019 [01:59 PM] Cagle Cartoons If you observe politics the way I do – as one stares at a five-car pileup on the freeway – your gaping will always be rewarded. The House voted on Wednesday to impeach President Trump, but the rhetoric…
Friday 12/20/2019
Posted: 20 December 2019 [02:40 PM] Special To The Washington Post In his unhinged letter Tuesday, President Donald Trump accused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of having “cheapened the importance of the very ugly word, impeachment!” A few days earlier, he accused Democrats of “trivializing impeachment.” If…
Posted: 20 December 2019 [02:35 PM] Bloomberg Opinion The Swedish word flygskam or its German version, Flugscham, meaning “flight shame,” is one of the words of 2019. While it’s not easy to separate its effect on airlines’ business from other factors, the countries where people…
Wednesday 12/18/2019
Posted: 18 December 2019 [03:48 PM] Bloomberg Opinion For anyone looking to prevent Syria’s Bashar Assad from securing a final victory in the civil war he started in 2011, it has been a dispiriting few months. President Donald Trump abruptly ordered a full withdrawal of…