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Members of the boards of the State Education Resource Center, the state lottery, the Connecticut Port Authority and the Connecticut Airport Authority receive a substantial gift in the legislature’s budget implementer bill released today.

The board members and directors of the agencies will benefit by an addition to state statutes, each of which states in sections 133-136 of the bill, some variation of this:

A director who is not otherwise eligible to
participate in the group hospitalization and medical and surgical
insurance plan established pursuant to subsection (a) of section 5-259
may elect to participate in such plan. Each director who elects such
coverage shall pay the same percentage of the premium as paid by a
state employee for the form of coverage elected under such plan. The
authority shall reimburse the appropriate state agency for the remainder
of the premium and any other costs incurred due to the director’s
participation.

This valuable benefit will make it more difficult to dislodge members of the boards when change becomes essential.

Published May 6, 2024.

Governor Ned Lamont will announce in a year whether he will seek a third four-year term in 2026. The Greenwich Democrat disclosed his political schedule in an interview with CT Mirror’s John Dankosky.

Lamont told Dankosky he is 70 and about to become a grandfather for the first time, events that cause one to reflect. He loves the job but hates campaigning. He contrasted himself with other state politicians, who, he said, love to campaign.

If Lamont decides in a year to run for re-election he has done others a favor by preventing them from wasting a year pushing at the starting gate. If the popular governor decides eight years are enough those bumptious hopefuls will have a year before their party’s nominating convention.

The entire interview is worth watching for a sustained look at Lamont’s optimism with some dashes of his mewling about the state’s Freedom of Information Act.

Published May 2, 2024.

The House of Representatives will spend part of the day considering a comprehensive bill on environmental policies. It is Green Bill Day in the House. The Senate Democrats do not have the spirit. Their lunches, one wag with a camera records, were encased in plastic and, worse, styrofoam.

Styrofoam, aka polystyrene, “is slow to degrade, and if disposed of improperly, the foam can leach chemicals into the environment harming water sources,” according to the Children’s Environmental Health Network. “Polystyrene manufacturing is an enormous creator of hazardous waste. Furthermore, polystyrene manufacturing greatly contributes to global warming.”

Legislators who a few months ago were (and will again) considering making it difficult for working people to purchase a vehicle with an internal combustion engine might want to think more locally–beginning with caucus meals.

Published May 1, 2024.

Matt Corey is rested and ready to run again. Corey has been the Republican nominee for the House in the First Congressional District, United States Senate and state Senate in the 4th district. The Manchester Republican scored his biggest win in the 2018 primary for the U.S. Senate, carrying every town in his contest against Dominic Rapini.

Corey went on to garner 39% of the vote against incumbent Democrat Chris Murphy. Two years later, Corey won 38% of the vote against Democratic incumbent Steve Cassano in the Manchester-centered 4th Senate District. Corey was the Republican nominee against veteran incumbent John Larson in 2014 and 2014.

Corey will face Jerome Smith of Beacon Falls at the Monday, May 13th party convention in New Britain to endorse a candidate to face Murphy, who is seeking a third term. Smith is the party leadership favorite.

New, anti-democratic rules require candidates to collect delegate signatures in order to have his or her name placed in nomination. Each candidate will need the signatures of one delegate from 25 towns or, in the alternative, 100 delegate signatures .

Published April 30th.

A routine stop in Somers by state police for driving under the influence of alcohol revealed an East Hartford police lieutenant and a retired East Hartford officer schemed to cover up the lieutenant’s operation of his motor vehicle. A police body camera, posted above, recorded the encounter with the lieutenant, the discovery of his cell phone on the ground behind the vehicle, his claim he was having a heart attack and the revelation that he is an East Hartford police officer.

Lieutenant Joseph Ficacelli admitted in Superior Court that in the early hours of January 28th he switched seats with his passenger. The switch was made when it appeared police would stop his vehicle after EMTs saw Ficacelli driving erratically, stopped his vehicle and asked if he was having a medical issue. Ficacelli, according to an April 5th court transcript, “was profane to them and used foul language at them.”

The EMTs followed Ficacelli. They saw him “go around to the back of the vehicle, then down to the ground, but then come around and get [into the passenger side] of the vehicle, and the vehicle proceeded,” State’s Attorney Matthew Gedansky told the court at the April 5th hearing in Superior Court in Rockville. The EMTs stayed “about a quarter of a mile back and watched all of this unfold.”

Police stopped the vehicle a short distance away. EMTs saw a cell phone on the ground behind where Ficacelli stopped and made the switch. It was the East Hartford lieutenant’s phone.

Less than a minute after police learned that Ficacelli had been driving the vehicle, he asked police to call an ambulance because “I feel like I’m having a heart attack.” A few minutes earlier, Robert Provonost, the other passenger/driver, had fallen to the ground when asked to step out of the vehicle by police. He also asked for an ambulance to take him to the hospital.

After an ambulance took Ficacelli from the scene, police discovered a locked box under the driver’s seat. It contained a pistol and Ficacelli’s police badge.

“Tell me what happened,” Judge Kathleen McNamara directed Ficacelli. “I’m interested in this because I’ve never seen such an elaborate attempt to avoid doing a Field Sobriety Test as what you undertook.”

Ficacelli responded that he was diagnosed with a heart condition as a child and there is a history of heart disease in his family. “So, every time I get a chest pain or an anxiety attack, I think the worst,” he said, “I go to a bad place where I think I’m having a heart attack and I’m checking out.” That fear did not preclude Ficacelli from arguing with police about their possession of his cell phone while they waited for the second ambulance to arrive, the video shows.

His symptoms of a heart attack appear to have quickly resolved. When police arrived at the hospital, according to Gedansky, “they heard Mr. Ficacelli yelling and screaming at nurses. Ficacelli is heard yelling that he refuses any EKG to be done on him.” Ficacelli disputed that assertion in court.

Judge McNamara, perplexed that someone who thinks they are having a heart attack would refuse treatment, postponed action on Ficacelli’s application for an alcohol diversionary program that, if successfully completed, would result in a dismissal of all charges and wipe it from his public record. She told Ficacelli, “I am just thoroughly appalled at your behavior. You should be ashamed of yourself.” She added, “You tarnished the badge of whatever department that is…You have a lot of authority but you have more responsibility to the public and to safe driving, and you tarnished that.”

The defendant told the court that East Hartford’s deputy chief is conducting its own investigation into the January 28th incident. Ficacelli continues to be paid and is assigned to what he described as “desk duty.” Ficacelli was East Hartford’s second highest paid employee last year, earning $187,203.

The matter was continued to June 5th.

This was not Ficacelli’s first encounter with police from another jurisdiction. Fox61 reported he questioned a Rocky Hill officer’s stop of him for speeding in 2022.

Published April 25, 2024.

Senators Martin Looney, Bob Duff and James Maroney for a legislative conference on Artificial Intelligence. The three Democrats are listed as participants at State Legislative Leaders Foundation 2024 Spring Leadership Summit on Artificial Intelligence this Thursday through Saturday.

The trio will join 52 other legislators from around the nation. Corporate participants include Alliance for Automotive Innovation, SoftBank Group, Western Governors University, Google T-Mobile, Mastercard, Visa, eBay, Abbott, StubHub, Diageo, National Beer Wholesalers Association, Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America, Apple, Farmers Insurance, The Proctor & Gamble Company, Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals, Sony Interactive Entertainment, The Entertainment Software Association and United States Fireworks Safety Commission.

The Senate will not meet while the three senators are in California. The AI bill to be considered in Connecticut remains in formation.

Published April 23, 2024.

Artificial Intelligence will hold the attention of legislators and other interested parties for some of the final 15 days of the regular session of the legislature. CT Mirror’s Mark Pazniokas reported the challenges facing state Senator James Maroney as he tries to find a consensus on the way forward. Governor Ned Lamont may understand Connecticut could be diminished by the state becoming known more for its regulations than its opportunities.

The challenges of regulating expanding AI are being addressed by optimists and dystopians around the world. Jim Armitage, business editor of The Sunday Times, explained the dramatic differences he sees in approaches between the United States and Europe.

He wrote:

The US is leading the way on capitalising, and creating, the technology so far. Primarily, that’s because it has the most money and the biggest concentration of brains to do so. But also, it’s down to the lighter touch its policymakers take against the private sector as it explores and invests.

Stanford University’s Artificial Intelligence Index Report last week showed that EU regulators enacted no fewer than 32 AI rules last year. In 2021 it was 46, an extraordinary achievement of bureaucratic productivity amid the distractions of the pandemic.

Yet in the US, the global cradle of AI breakthroughs, they pushed through a paltry 25 and that was Washington’s highest ever. Meanwhile, and perhaps as a result, since 2017, US investment in AI has outstripped the UK and EU’s combined efforts in all but one of 25 sectors, from healthcare and financial technology to customer services. The exception? That red tape lover’s haven: data protection monitoring.

While we may be able to boast of being the safest regions in the western world, Britain and Europe also risk being the most technologically stifled. Where America innovates, we regulate.

The latest regulatory assault on the industry comes from Britain’s Competition & Markets Authority (CMA). Far from hiding its head under the duvet following its wrongheaded banning, then approval of, Microsoft’s merger with games maker Activision Blizzard, it is now blustering about how anti-competitive it is that big US tech companies are — horror of horrors — working with each other on AI.

Well, there’s a reason for that. The American tech giants are collaborating because building AI models is so vastly expensive — and financially risky — that it wouldn’t otherwise happen. Some context:

Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s GPT-4 upgrade used $78 million of computing power (or “compute” in the jargon) to train itself, while Google’s Gemini Ultra used $191 million.

Between 2017 and 2023, America — largely via its tech giants — spent some $18 billion on AI infrastructure compared with the EU and UK’s $100 million, the AI Index Report says.

So, when the CMA darkly proclaims that it has uncovered 90 AI partnerships and strategic co-investments involving Google, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and Nvidia, I say: good. Bring it on.

Monopoly regulators across the western world are appalled that back in the day they dozily allowed Mark Zuckerberg to buy Instagram and WhatsApp. But those deals were about swallowing up smaller rivals’ existing technologies. This is now about pooling the vast resources needed to build the infrastructure of a completely new technology. One that could speed cures for cancer and the common cold, which is more than can be said for the worrywarts at the CMA.

Rather than try to stifle this new infrastructure, or vainly attempt to block its access to British and European markets, we should embrace it and invest in figuring out how to use it to create products and services the world will love, and pay us handsomely for.

Published April 23, 2024.

Connecticut State Colleges and Universities Board of Regents Chair JoAnn Ryan  “notified Vice Chair McCarthy and Chancellor Cheng that she would be stepping back from her Board duties for several weeks to focus on getting some much-needed rest after exceptionally busy times both at CSCU and at Northwestern CT Chamber of Commerce.”

The announcement was shared with Regents and others on Tuesday. Ryan made her announcement to McCarthy and Cheng last week. Ryan’s break from duties comes at an intense time for CSCU as it attempts to navigate the disagreement between Governor Ned Lamont and some legislative leaders over higher education funding.

Those “exceptionally busy times” referred to in the message sent by Associate Director of Board Affairs Pam Heleen have not included scrutinizing high lever hiring decisions by Cheng, who has shown a distinct taste for cronyism. The Regents have refused to require him to conduct traditional searches to find the most qualified candidates to work for the system.

Ryan’s stepping back is expected to last for several weeks. In the meantime, the Board’s affairs will be handled by McCarthy and Heleen, according to Heleen.

Published April 19, 2024.

At the conclusion of a four and a half hour termination hearing, suspended Chief Public Defender TaShun Bowden-Lewis’s lawyer was caught on a microphone revealing his strategy and his client’s strategy: delay. Thomas Bucci, counsel for Bowden-Lewis, engaged in an exchange with Public Defender Services Commission Chairman Richard Palmer over date on which the hearing would resume.

”Let’s keep you on the payroll for as long as possible.” Bucci, a former mayor of Bridgeport, was caught saying to Bowden-Lewis. In her state of suspension, Bowden-Lewis continues to be paid. That will end if she is removed from the job she has held for two tumultuous years. Removal appears to be the likeliest outcome as Bowden-Lewis seemed to have no support among the six members of the commission. Throughout the hearing, various members expressed exasperation boarding on astonishment at Bowden-Lewis’s evasive and unresponsive answers to questions. It was a festival of non-sequiturs as Bowden-Lewis often contended that her authority as chief was unlimited. Bowden-Lewis was unable to provide a creditable reason for having a technology staffer provide her with Palmer’s emails to and from the agency’s counsel. She testified that she could not recall reading the messages she’d gone to considerable lengths to obtain.

Palmer, a retired associate justice of the state Supreme Court, offered Bucci the choice of continuing the hearing Tuesday another three and a half hours until 10 p.m. or reconvening at another date—-soon.

Little business was thought to have been moved in the state’s criminal courtrooms as both public defenders and prosecutors watched the final act of Bowden-Lewis’s bewildering tenure at the head of the nation’s oldest public defender public agency.

Published April 16, 2024.

Yale Graduate Students for Palestine (GSP) plans to commence a hunger strike if Yale University president Peter Salovey refuses or ignores the group’s demands that Yale divest its pension funds from arms manufacturers that do business with Israel. In a Tuesday night email to members of the press, GSP announced that 48 hours after an unsatisfactory or no response is received from Salovey, “around 12 members of the Graduate Students for Palestine will begin a hunger strike.”

According to the Yale Daily News, the dozen hunger strikers will be drawn from both undergraduate and graduate students.

The hunger strike is timed to “coincide with Bulldog Days, when prospective undergraduate students come to visit Yale,” according to GSP. The time and location of the hunger strike, the GSP message message concludes, “will hopefully bring even more attention to the strikers, and to the ongoing genocide being perpetrated by the Israeli military.”

Abraham Wyner, Professor of Statistics and Data Science at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Faculty Co-Director of the Wharton Sports Analytics and Business Initiative, casts considerable doubt on the frequently cited claims by the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry that 30,000 civilians have been killed during the six months of war. He writes, “The total civilian casualty count is likely to be extremely overstated. Israel estimates that at least 12,000 fighters have been killed. If that number proves to be even reasonably accurate, then the ratio of noncombatant casualties to combatants is remarkably low: at most 1.4 to 1 and perhaps as low as 1 to 1.”

Wyner explained his analysis on the April 10th episode of Dan Senor’s essential Call Me Back podcast.

American university campuses have seen an explosion of anti-Israeli and antisemitic protests against Israel’s right to defend itself since the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people in southern Israel. Hamas continues to hold more than 100 hostages, though the number who have died while in captivity is uncertain.

A February hunger strike by 17 Brown University students also seeking a change in investment policies ended after eight days. More than 30 Harvard students went on a 12 hour fast to show their support for the Brown University students.

Published April 11, 2024.