In the News

Nineteen Democratic lawmakers proposed a ban on buy-now, pay-later loans to finance semiautomatic weapons that would include levying hefty fines on companies that enable the transactions and dealers that accept them. 

West Hartford, CT — When he introduced President Joe Biden at a national gun reform summit at the University of Hartford on Friday, U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy said they legislation they had come to celebrate “would not have happened without Joe Biden.”

“He told me, ‘I care about this issue so deeply in my bones, the safety of our kids. I’m willing to take any chance, no matter how remote, to get something done,’” Murphy said. “We have a president who eats, sleeps and breathes the fight to end this epidemic, our president, President Joe Biden.”

Farmington, CT (WTIC Radio)-Congress members John Larson (D-1st) and Jahana Hayes (D-5th)touted the virtues of Social Security 2100, calling for the expansion of the program, worried that their Republican counterparts want to reduce or privatize the program that turns 88
in August.

James T. Brett, President and CEO of the New England Council, wrote the following op-ed that appeared in the Hartford Business Journal:

Here in New England, we are proud of our region’s reputation as a global innovation hub.

Our region is home to some of the world’s most innovative companies, in industries ranging from defense, to life sciences, to clean energy, to technology.

U.S. Rep. John. B. Larson said he simply wants all lawmakers to see the heartache and what parents who lose children to gun violence “are living through on a daily basis.”

Larson,.D-1st District, spoke outside the House Triangle in Washington D.C., as Mothers United Against Violence of Hartford joined the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, elected officials and advocates in calling for action on gun violence prevention legislation.

Faced with a doggedly high unemployment rate, Bristol has directed a hefty share of its American Rescue Plan Act aid to a new campaign to connect out-of-work residents with good jobs.

The plan to use $2.4 million in federal aid for BristolWORKS!, Bristol’s new campaign against unemployment, brought a rare showing of bipartisan applause, with Democratic and Republican leaders praising the decision.

It has been 20 years since “Shock and Awe,” the code name given to the aerial bombardment that commenced America’s war in Iraq.

U.S. spy agencies wrongly suggested Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and some U.S. officials suggested Iraqi officials had ties to al-Qaida leaders following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, despite evidence of deep antipathy between the two sides.

In 2002, those arguments were so convincing that the U.S. House of Representatives voted 296-to-133 to approve the resolution to go to war with Iraq.

President Joe Biden’s budget proposal would help protect tens of thousands of Connecticut jobs at Pratt & Whitney as well as its suppliers by supporting the modernization of the F135 engines for fighter jets.

The decision by the Air Force to not continue the competition to find an alternative would save $6 billion and preserve 27,000 jobs at Raytheon Technologies’ Pratt & Whitney, according to U.S. Rep. John Larson, D-1st District. He has helped lead the push for making upgrades to the company’s existing engines that power the F-35 joint strike fighter.