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Plan
Reins In Biggest Banks
US
Struggles to Meet Health-Law Deadline
Connecticut State's highways ranked among
worst
TheDay.com - 11 hours ago
Connecticut's state highway system is on the
decline, now ranked one of the worst in the nation, according to a Reason
Foundation study.
UConn-Webster Bank Sponsorship Deal Will Remain Secret
After an eight month battle, The Associated
Press dropped its Freedom of Information request for the contract detailing the
University of Connecticut’s new relationship with
Webster Bank.
Egypt wins Arab billions, names prime minister
CAIRO - Egypt named an interim prime minister on Tuesday
and rich Gulf states
poured in $8 billion in aid, as the biggest Arab nation sought ways out of a
crisis a day after troops killed dozens of Islamists. Full Article
IRS Screw-Up Leaks Thousands of Social Security Numbers
The IRS's bad year just keeps getting worse. Already dealing
with a scandal involving its higher scrutiny of political groups
seeking nonprofit status, and the revelation that it claims the power to read taxpayers'
emails, the agency is now facing questions about how it wound up
leaking the Social Security numbers of thousands of taxpayers. Continue reading
at ….. http://www.dailyfinance.com/on/irs-social-security-numbers-leak/
State Police Receive First Assault Weapons Registrations
Click Here For Forms
Firearms industry sues Connecticut
Fitch downgrades CT | HartfordBusiness.com
High debt and fiscal vulnerability were two
factors behind one credit ratings agency's decision this week to downgrade Connecticut's general
obligation bonds.
Fitch Ratings downgraded its outlook on the
state from "stable" to "negative." Fitch said the state has
"reduced fiscal flexibility at a time of lingering economic and revenue
uncertainty."
July 10, 2013
From: The Federation of
Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations
Contact: Susan Kniep,
President
Website: http://ctact.org/
Email: fctopresident@aol.com
Telephone: 860-841-8032
Treasury IG: Liberal groups weren't targeted by IRS like Tea Party ...
By Bernie Becker - 06/27/13 Thehill.com
Liberal groups seeking tax-exempt status faced less IRS
scrutiny than Tea Party groups, according to the Treasury Department’s
inspector general. J. Russell George, Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration,
told Rep. Sandy Levin (D-Mich.) in a letter dated
Wednesday that the IRS did not use inappropriate criteria to scrutinize groups
with “progressives” in their name seeking tax-exempt status. “Our audit did not
find evidence that the IRS used the ‘progressives’ identifier as selection
criteria for potential political cases between May 2010 and May 2012,” George
wrote in the letter obtained by The Hill. Continue reading this article at ….. http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/domestic-taxes/308131-ig-liberal-groups-not-targeted-like-tea-party
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July 5, 2013 The cost
to taxpayers of a long-running racial-bias lawsuit by death-row inmates has
topped $3.5 million, with more possible before an expected judge's ruling
within a few months — and then a possible appeal by whoever loses.
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Supreme Court upholds 2.9 million dollar decision against MDC
Provided by the Journal Inquirer: North-Central Connecticut's Hometown
Newspaper
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In Secret, Court Vastly Broadens Powers of N.S.A. - NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON — In more than a dozen classified
rulings, the nation’s surveillance court has created a secret body of law
giving the National Security Agency the power to amass vast
collections of data on Americans while pursuing not only terrorism suspects,
but also people possibly involved in nuclear proliferation, espionage and cyberattacks, officials say. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/07/us/in-secret-court-vastly-broadens-powers-of-nsa.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
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As reported by Reuters……
Firemen cut power to train's brakes: railway
By Richard Valdmanis
and P.J. Huffstutter
LAC-MEGANTIC, Quebec - Airbrakes that would have prevented
the Quebec train disaster failed because they were powered by an engine that
firefighters shut down as they dealt with a fire prior to the calamity, the
head of the railway said. Full Article | Map
Quebec rail disaster shines critical light on oil-by-rail
boom
Asiana pilot was in Boeing 777 training
By Sarah McBride and Hyunjoo Jin
SAN FRANCISCO/SEOUL - The pilot of the Asiana
plane that crashed at San Francisco International Airport was still in training
for the Boeing 777 when he attempted to land the aircraft under supervision,
the South Korean airline said. Full Article | Slideshow
Interactive: Asiana air crash
Hazardous chemicals warning system falls short
By M.B. Pell, Ryan McNeill and Selam Gebrekidan
NEW YORK - A 27-year-old U.S. program intended to warn the
public of the presence of hazardous chemicals is flawed in many states due to
scant oversight and lax reporting by plant owners, a Reuters examination
finds. Full Article
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Check Out The Connecticut Policy Institute: Home
A
GOP gubernatorial hopeful and his 'nonpartisan' policy institute ... By Mark Pazniokas
CTMirror.org July 7, 2013 ….. A once and
future Republican candidate for governor, Tom Foley greeted a lunchtime
audience drawn by what promised to be a withering and irreverent take on
Connecticut legislative politics: “Going Down the Toilet and Picking Up Speed.”
…… Days before Malloy proposed an income-tax increase as part of his first
budget proposal, the institute released an
anticipatory paper, “Don’t Kill The Golden Goose! Raising
The Income Tax May be Good Politics, But It Is Bad Policy.” When Malloy negotiated a bipartisan jobs
package in late 2011, the institute responded two months later with a critique
of the state’s economic development policies: “Connecticut Job Creation: Separating
Policy from Politics.” Other
papers have made a case for dramatic reforms of the state’s pension system and
its public schools,
implicit rebukes to Malloy’s highly touted reforms in those areas as
inadequate. ….. Powell’s recent talk in
Hartford about legislative politics was the first of three policy discussions
CPI has scheduled for the summer: Dean Esserman, the
New Haven chief of police, is talking about strategies to fight urban crime in
July. Esserman is the appointee of a Democratic
mayor, John DeStefano. John Rathgeber,
the chief executive of the Connecticut Business & Industry Association, is
addressing “what it will take to get Connecticut employers hiring again” in
August. “My goal is to establish it as separate from me, something that is
producing credible, nonpartisan research focused on economic policy and
education policy for Connecticut,”
Foley said. “I think we’ve done an excellent job.” Read complete article at …. http://www.ctmirror.com/story/gop-gubernatorial-hopeful-and-his-nonpartisan-policy-institute
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On July 1, 2013 the article captioned CT News Junkie | Fiscal Year 2013 Ends With
Surplus noted that: “The state’s financial outlook has further
improved this month — good news, but still showing reasons for caution because
the most significant gains were potentially related to one-time revenue
windfalls,” Lembo said. “The most significant revenue
growth has occurred in the inheritance and estate tax, which is $269.8 million
over budget.”
To which one reader posted “In other
words, the fact that more people croaked than we expected saved the
Legislature’s @$$. “Hey lets buy down some of
our massive debt!”
On July 8, 2013 State Comptroller Kevin Lembo
appears to realize that we can’t hope for more rich people to die to keep our
budget balanced as noted within the article by Keith M. Phaneuf of CTMirror.org captioned Lembo: A dose of realism could help keep budget balanced
…….Though the state’s chief fiscal watchdog won’t officially
close the books on 2012-13 until early September, Lembo
projected a $236.6 million surplus for the fiscal year that ended June 30. And
though most of that bonus, which represents about one-ninth of the year’s
operating budget, is committed to help pay for state spending in 2013-14 and
2014-15, about $15.8 million is available for deposit into the emergency budget
reserve. That account, commonly known as
the Rainy Day Fund, already holds more than $93 million, and should hold just
over $109 million once the books on the outgoing year officially are closed.
Read complete article at ….. http://www.ctmirror.com/story/lembo-dose-realism-could-help-keep-budget-balanced
Read More on
the State Budget & Economy | The CT Mirror
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10 ObamaCare fumbles Sam Baker and Elise Viebeck July 4,
2013 This week’s stunning delay in the
Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) employer mandate was hardly the first time that ObamaCare's implementation effort has stumbled, as the
president's signature domestic policy initiative has suffered several
self-inflicted wounds on the path toward full implementation. Democrats say the
law will work well once it's fully implemented, and President Obama has
acknowledged that there will be more “glitches and bumps” as key provisions start
to take effect. While many of the
administration’s challenges stem from entrenched Republican opposition to
anything that would help the law function better, plenty of the bumps in the
road so far have also arisen from the law itself. As officials work to implement the law's
biggest provisions, which also happen to be the policies that provide the
clearest and most direct benefits to consumers, here is a recap of some of ObamaCare's biggest stumbles so far. http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-reform-implementation/309261-10-obamacare-fumbles
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