
Thank you very much. I can't believe I'm standing up here at this podium at the Worst Mom Ever awards!…

Thank you very much. I can't believe I'm standing up here at this podium at the Worst Mom Ever awards!…
Friday Ficks Column The Facebook post sounded pretty urgent. It read, in part, that “I have an immediate need.” Immediate is usually…
The statistic is startling – according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), breast cancer is the most…
On April 24, the world will recognize and commemorate the tragedy of the Armenian Genocide of 1915, when more than 1.5 million Armenian men…
Someday, if the governor and state legislators ever tire of coddling the state employee unions and if the president and Congress ever tire of coddling investment banks and military contractors, maybe they should note what happened recently at Silver Lane…
Friday Ficks "Attorney Ficks has transmogrified the facts," said my adversary in his closing argument. "He did what?" replied the arbitrator. "He…
Legislators of both parties in the General Assembly are congratulating themselves on the bipartisan juvenile justice bill that has come out of the Judiciary Committee, and well they should. For the legislation will do no more than provide the illusion…
The Charter of the City of Bristol, CT, acts as the constitutional document for citizens of our All Heart City. The Charter…
By CHRIS POWELL Connecticut may be paying the Sikorsky helicopter division of military contractor Lockheed Martin as much as $250 million to keep its facilities in the state for the next 20 years -- an average of…
Everybody in state government seems to love this tax-cutting stuff -- first the temporary suspension of Connecticut's 25-cents-per-gallon gasoline tax, and then a week of lifting the sales tax on most clothing purchases. The public will love it too. But…
Friday Ficks I have a dirty four letter word that I want you to use right now. It is not a four…
Friday Ficks Tree. Swerve. Tree. Swerve again. A third tree. Swerve again. Oh shoot...too late. This was not a trifecta at the horse track, or…
Journal Inquirer Announcing goodies for various municipalities and organizations lately, Governor Lamont has been using government money to win support for his re-election campaign, as any incumbent would. But all the goodies awarded so far don't come close to…
Liberal Democratic members of the General Assembly again are pursuing what they call fairness in taxation, their euphemism for state government's raising and spending a lot more money. Governor Lamont, a Democrat, opposes increasing taxes while state government has a…
City Hall renovations: What the community needs to know The current City Hall building was constructed in the early 1960s –…
Most people seem to like Governor Lamont's proposal to reduce from 45 to 29 mills the state's limit on municipal property taxes…
Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine has rocketed the United States into a whirlwind of pious but ineffectual posturing. In his State of…
Friday Ficks I called them tip misers (and probably other things too, but this is a G-Rated column). The tip misers on my…
Are things getting so bad for the Democrats that even Connecticut's senior U.S. senator, Richard Blumenthal, is worried about winning re-election this…
From Connecticut's congressional delegation last week the watchwords of pious posturing were: "Stand with Ukraine." Of course no one was proposing to…
BOOST POLITICAL COMPETITION: DISSOLVE CONGRESS DISTRICTS By CHRIS POWELL While the redrawing of congressional districts in other states has become…
Whatever one thinks about guns, this month's $73 million lawsuit settlement paid by the insurers of the former Remington gun manufacturing company…
Republican state legislators around the country are proposing to require public schools to post all curriculum materials on the internet as an accountability measure, and the other day they got powerful if inadvertent support from Enfield’s school system. Enfield’s school…
Nobody needs the federal investigation that is under way to grasp the basics of the racket that was being run from the state budget office – the Office of Policy and Management – by its deputy secretary, Konstantinos Diamantis, who…
It materialized out of nowhere, moving just above the Farmington River, right alongside me. And I knew what it…
Addressing the General Assembly last week, Governor Lamont touted state government's comfortable financial position, a reversal of the position he inherited when…
Connecticut lately has generated more than its share of silly paradoxes. Having given up on the futility of criminalizing marijuana, state government…
How, in a wealthy and highly taxed state with scores of social programs and constant prattling about unmet human needs, does a…
Maybe all those people who in the last year or so have given up on New York City and its inner suburbs…
Connecticut's best investigative journalism so far this year was probably the Jan. 2 report by the Connecticut Mirror's Andrew Brown and Kasturi…
For most of the last 70 years in the United States, ever since the Red Scare of the 1950s, the Republican Party…
Shall I join with other nations in alliance? If allies are weak, am I not best alone? If allies are strong with…
What has Connecticut gotten for the 33 years of litigation in the Hartford school integration case of Sheff v. O'Neill, which purportedly…
Maybe with an eye to the public’s growing skepticism of rule by decree as his re-election campaign begins, Governor Lamont has asked…
By CHRIS POWELL Maybe the best measure of Bob Stefanowski's vast improvement as a candidate for governor is how quickly he scared…
Another spectacular embarrassment for the University of Connecticut, and thus for the state itself, exploded last week -- the $11 million wrongful…
Having supported the futile U.S. war in Afghanistan throughout their congressional careers, helping to flush $2 trillion down the toilet of that…
"Did you reset the odometer?" I asked. "Uh ... no ... it doesn't really work that way," he responded. A few months…
Despite its two years of painstaking effort, Connecticut's Police Transparency and Accountability Task Force last week recommended little to increase transparency and…
Governor Lamont and state Attorney General William Tong, both Democrats, are pressing in federal court to restore a lucrative tax break for…
Teachers and nurses in Connecticut who are government employees, along with employees of nursing homes, whose industry is mostly funded by government,…
Bribing people with their own money is a standard technique of politics, and with a state election coming up, Connecticut's Democratic and…
My child’s education in uncertain times with the New Year To the Editor: Just as we thought things were returning to normal, we are faced with school closings yet again! My child’s education is back in limbo, and I wonder…
How, some readers ask, can this column, written by a mere layman, assert that the COVID-19 vaccines aren't very effective? First, it's…
Connecticut occasionally sees state Treasurer Shawn T. Wooden touting state government's college savings program in television commercials with two young actors impersonating…
"Will Carl Ficks please report to the Principal's office. Carl Ficks to the Principal's office." Sixth grade and a reckoning with Sister…
For months the prevailing view about the forthcoming election for governor has been that Governor Lamont's handling of the virus epidemic in…
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Connecticut doesn't audit the performance of any of its major and expensive state government policies – not education, not welfare, not urban…
From Connecticut and Washington last week came more strong signs that higher education isn't worth the expense to many students. The Connecticut…