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Im afraid, and I dont scare easily. When I worked for The Associated Press in Chicago, I walked home from work many nights hours before sunrise. While reporting on a childs death, I walked alone into a gang-infested high-rise housing project a few miles away.

I once drove to church by way of a series of desolate Chicago neighborhoods where cab drivers would not venture. (I later found a congregation in a safer area.)

And in Conway, I did not let a murderers letter keep me away from work, even though he informed me he had read my article about his case and did not like it.

President Donald Trumps blatant instigations of violence against journalists didnt keep me away either, not even after the shooting deaths in the Capital Gazettes Maryland newsroom in 2018.

But Im scared nowfor our nations democracy, for my family, for people of color, for the hungry and the sick, for people whose religion differs from what self-proclaimed evangelicals profess to believe. Im even scared for Trumps unflinchingly loyal disciples, for they likely have no idea of the dangers that could await even them if our democracy fails.

I do not worry about the senators, the representatives and the judges, for they know whats in their best interest. They also know Trump doesnt care. Hes more worried about his latest tweet and his latest prenuptial agreement than whether the pregnant woman will get the prenatal care she needs and survive childbirth or whether the underpaid teacher with coronavirus will get adequate health care.

The problem with Trump is not that hes a powerful man but that hes a power grabber, a mirror grabber and, by his own admission, a vagina grabber. He will ultimately do what he believes is best for the man in the mirror. So I pray that someone convinces him that his best future does not involve violence or anything more irrational than what hes already done.

My concern extends to those who blindly worship Trump much as the uninformed masses and the military do in totalitarian countries. The would-be dear leader of the United States counts many though not all evangelicals and far too many racists and xenophobes among his followers.

Tomorrows dear leader might share that base of support, or he might prefer atheism, Mormonism, Judaism, Islam, Episcopal beliefs, or Catholicism and then seek to exclude everyone else. For once in power, totalitarian leaders can choose whatever religion, political party, and racial prejudice they want, and can demand that we share those views.

An authoritarian leader can and probably would ignore the U.S. Constitution. Forget ratification votes. After all, elections apparently dont matter to Trump, the man who says hes not a politician even as he brags of deal-making and panders to his political base.

A dear leader can revoke the Second Amendment. Thats the one that protects your hunting rifle, your handgun.

A dear leader also can singlehandedly revoke the First Amendment, the one that allows me to write this column and you to write a letter to the editor opposing it. And he can singlehandedly lock the doors to the church building, synagogue, cathedral or mosque where you worship.

I understand that Trump has much to lose by walking peacefully out of the White House. For one thing, he can be charged with a state crime even if he resigns early and Vice President Mike Pence pardons him of federal crimes.

For another, Trump reportedly has roughly $400 million in debt coming due during the next four years. If he waves the white flag, he may not have the power any longer to work out a deal with the lenders, foreign or otherwise, he owes. (I am tempted to use a stronger word than deal but shall refrain.)

Yes, Trump could leave this country as he has said he might. If hes

short on money, he could probably bunk with Edward Snowden in Russia. Of course, if Vladimir Putin or Putins pals are the ones Trump owes, that might not be a great idea. Ditto Saudi Arabia and its crown prince, and theyre certainly not the kind of friends Id want if I owed them money.

The longer Trump refuses to

acknowledge his defeat, the more irrational and more desperate he will appear. At this point, Trump would do well just to let the transition process begin. As it is, hes endangering our democracy and our national security, for enemy countries can gloat and take advantage of our weaknesses when we are at war with ourselves.

Weve had other close presidential elections. One was in 2016. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton quickly conceded. I didnt hear anyone saying we should give her more time to accept defeat. She is an adult and acted like one, not like an untrained toddler going back and forth between home and the playground.

If former President Barack Obama had even mumbled about hanging out in the White House longer than he was elected to serve, I can only imagine the outcry. Those Confederate flags would have been in the back of more pickups than we could count.

A few things Ive learned as a white woman who was single most of her life have become increasingly clear as Ive grown older and, I think, wiser or perhaps more realistic.

First, a Black man who dares to be powerful is in for a struggle and plenty of hate in this country. Too many white people just dont like the idea of a Black person telling them what to do.

Second, a woman of any color who dares to be powerful is in for both as well. If she is Black or Asian, she faces an even tougher fight. If she has ever openly had an affair, shes branded for life and will be subjected to smears years later. And if shes single, well, thats just not allowed.

But let an amoral white man come along with an ego problem, a penchant for lies and

an unquenchable

for money, power and sexual partners, and he wins the favor and forever-pardon of evangelicals, from Franklin Graham to Prosperity Gospel advocate Paula White.

All thats to say, I have what some may consider an outlandish idea. Maybe its time for Trumps evangelical supporters and President-elect Joe Bidens most liberal supporters to become a tad more ecumenical when it comes to our country.

After all, this is the United States. Its not a church, its not a business, and its not a kingdom. Its a democracy, at least for now.

Debra Hale-Shelton can be reached at [emailprotected] . Follow her on Twitter at @nottalking.

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OPINION | DEBRA HALE-SHELTON: A democracy on the edge - Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

The U.S. militia movement has long been permeated by a peculiar-and undoubtedly mistaken-interpretation of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and civil liberties.

This is true of an armed militia group calling itself the Wolverine Watchmen, who were involved in the recently uncovered plot to overthrow the Michigan government and kidnap Gretchen Whitmer.

As I wrote in Fracturing the Founding: As the Old Right corrupts the Constitution published in 2019, the core of the militia movements devotion to what I have called the Old Right Constitution is a poisonous mixture of constitutional falsehoods and half-truths.

Private militias

The term militia has many meanings.

Article 1 of the Constitution refers to militias and authorizes Congress to provide for the organization, arming and disciplining of militias.

But the Constitution does not provide for private militias, such as the extreme right-wing Wolverine Watchmen, Proud Boys, Michigan Militia and the Oath Keepers, to name a few.

Private militias are simply groups of like-minded men-their members are usually whites-who profess a sometimes confusing set of beliefs about a miserly federal government hostile to whites and white heritage, and about the sanctity of the right to bear arms and private property. They believe that the government is under the control of Jews, the United Nations, international banking interests, leftists, antifa, Black Lives Matter and so on. There is no evidence of this.

On Thursday the FBI arrested six men, five of them from Michigan, and charged them with conspiracy to kidnap Whitmer. Shortly thereafter, state authorities accused another seven men of attempting to storm the Michigan Capitol and seek civil war. Among them were the founders and several members of the Wolverine Watchmen.

According to the FBI affidavit attached to the federal indictments, the six accused men claimed to be defense attorneys for the Bill of Rights. In fact, some of the men had participated in April rallies in the state capital of Lansing, where armed citizens tried to force their way onto the floor of the House of Representatives to protest Whitmers order to shut down the pandemic as a violation of the Constitution by a tyrannical government that wanted to sacrifice civil liberties in the name of the COVID-19 struggle.

According to the FBI affidavit, the conspirators wanted to create a society that adheres to the U.S. Bill of Rights and in which they can be self-sufficient.

The militiamen see themselves as the last true American patriots, the modern defenders of the United States Constitution in general and the Second Amendment in particular.

Thus the Bill of Rights-and especially the Second Amendment, which establishes the right to bear arms-play an important role in the United States Constitution. It is no coincidence that the first discussions about the overthrow of the so-called tyrannical governor of Michigan began at a Second Amendment rally in June.

According to most militias, the Second Amendment authorizes their activities and also makes them free from legal regulation by the state. In reality, the Second Amendment does nothing to authorize private armed militias. Private armed militias are expressly illegal in every state.

No limitation of rights

Another basic principle of militia constitutionalism is absolutism. In the world of militias, absolutism is understood as the idea that basic constitutional rights such as freedom of speech, the right to bear arms, and the right to property cannot be restricted or regulated by the state without the consent of the citizen.

The extreme right-wing reading of the First and Second Amendments to the Constitution which regulate freedom of speech and the right to bear arms respectively is based on a simple premise: Both amendments are literal and absolute. They believe that the First Amendment allows them to say anything, anytime, anywhere, to anyone, without consequences or accusations from the government or even from other citizens who disagree or are offended by their speech.

Similarly, advocates of old-fashioned gun ownership believe that the Second Amendment protects their God-given right to own a gun any gun and that government efforts to deny, restrict or even register their guns must be unconstitutional. They believe that the Second Amendment

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The conspiracy to kidnap Governor Mich. grew out of the constitutional falsehoods of the militia. - The Washington Newsday

Matt Grahn|The Bulletin

NORWICH Norwich Mayor Peter Nystrom said he gets asked by businesses if there are any large plots of land available in the city. His reply isoften "No" since most larger spaces are Brownfield sites, which are expensive to clean up.

However, if a land sale goes through, it will make large projects easier for businesses looking to come to the city.

I get calls throughout the almost three years Ive been mayor, and people are looking for 100 acres, 50 acres, Nystrom said. I dont have anything to offer them, yet they want to be in this central location between Boston and New York, as well as the proximity to the two casinos.

On Sept. 30, the latest amendment to the Agreement of Sale of land from Byron Brook Country Club, LLC and M&A Holdings, LLC to the Norwich Community Development Corp. (NCDC) was signed, and was made public last Friday. NCDC, along with Norwich Public Utilities, has been working on developing a second business park in Norwich. The amendment states that NCDC has until Dec. 15, 2022, to make sure that the land is feasible for construction, which is currently when the decision to buy will be made.

We negotiated a period of time to make sure the land is suitable and can be developed as a business park, said attorney Mark Block, representing NCDC.

Blockbelieves its important for the city to have more land with the development.

If the city is going to attract any business or industry, we need areas that can be developed for the industries and businesses to locate, Block said.

Currently, Block said, that they are still checking the feasibility of the land.

Were doing all the studies that are necessary to determine the suitability of the property, Block said.

The Agreement of Sale, first signed on July 31, 2019, stated that the total property sale, 272 acres over eight tracts, was worth $3.55 million, and initially required a $65,000 deposit. More deposits have been made, with a $10,000 deposit in the first amendment and $100,000 in the second amendment, and $150,000 in the fourth amendment, with half paid in January, and half in July.

The land in question held by Byron Brook Country Club, LLC and M&A Holdings LLC is in Occum. The properties in particular are on Scotland Road, Lawler Lane, Canterbury Turnpikeand Bromley Lane.

The owners originally bought the land for building 658 apartments with a golf course and country club, which was expected to cost $200 million. However, due to the economic downturn in 2007, the developer tried to change the project. The project was officially cancelled in 2011, after Norwich released $1.5 million in bonding back to the developers.

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Business park in Occum still in the works - Norwich Bulletin

Unofficial results show Democratic President Elect Joe Biden won seven Ohio counties one less than Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016. But while President Trump won the state, it appears Biden won more votes than Clinton. Suburban women boosted Democrats in this election but those gains were offset by losses in other areas where Democrats have been successful in the past.

While Ohio voters chose to re-elect President Trump by approximately the same margin he won by a few years ago, there was a difference.Some suburban areas were less red than theyve been in past elections.

And these ladies who are part of a national group known as Red Wine and Blue think women were the key difference.Katie Paris is the groups director.

Almost every suburban county moved in the Democrats direction. Delaware County narrowed the gap with Republicans by nine points. Warren County narrowed the gap with Republicans by seven points. In fact, all of the counties where we focused our attention with red, white and blue, we saw movement in that direction," Paris says.

And Paris, whos based in Shaker Heights in suburban Cleveland,says the exit polling was even more remarkable when you look at white college educated women.

They moved 37 points from 2016. According to the exit polls, white college women voted for Trump by 17 points in 2020. They supported Joe Biden by 20 points. So that's real movement. We're excited about the progress that we've made," Paris says.

But an ad by the Trump campaign that depicted a 9-1-1 call being diverted to an answering machine may have swayed some Republican women to stay with the President. That ad said the call couldn't be answered immediately due to "defunding of the police." Lee Ann Johnson who headed Ohio Women for Trump says this message resonated with some women.

I think denouncing law and order just did not go over well with suburban women. I have a 16-year-old son. I want to know that, God forbid if he got into a car accident and had to call the police, that they were going to show up and make sure that everything was OK. And I think that is just multiplied across the state, especially for suburban moms," Johnson says.

LeeAnn Johnsonis the wife of Congressman Bill Johnson of Marietta, who was re-electedoverwhelminglyin Ohios 6thDistrict, which covers 18 counties in Appalachian Ohio. Johnson says the women theGOPput on the ballot were successful too.

The women, the Republican women in the House doubled their numbers. All 11 women seeking re-election in the US House were re-elected and we doubled those numbers by 13. That's remarkable. And every Republican candidate that flipped a Democrat seat was either a minority, a woman or a veteran. And that speak volumes," Johnson says.

But even though Democratsperformed better in suburban areas, Ohio Democratic Party Chair David Pepper says those gains were offset by losses in small towns and rural areas.

If places that used to vote for Democrats like Mansfield or Marietta or all these other smaller towns that aren't the suburbs, they're a little more rural down now. Maybe it's West Union, Ohio.It's all over the state until Democrats have a real plan of action to help lift those communities. I think we will struggle.

OSU Political science professor Paul Beck agrees Democrats need to do better with small towns in Ohio. But in the effort to gain suburban women, he says Democrats lost support from one of their key constituencies.

One big difference in Ohio compared with perhaps the national picture is that union members, union households in Ohio were considerably more for Trump. That was true nationally. Nationally, they were Biden supporters, majority of them in Ohio. A majority of them were Trump supporters. And you see this, by the way, in the results that appear from Mahoning Valley County and maybe Trumbull as well, that white industrial workers, largely males, but not entirely males, are very much enamored of President Trump and much less so than the Democratic nominee," Beck says.

Democrats held onto gains they made in the suburbs in 2018, when they gained a net total of five seats in the Ohio House. And they added a seat in Westlake in suburban Cleveland, with Monique Smith beating Republican Rep. Dave Greenspan. But Republicans picked up three seats that had been held by Democrats in rural southeast Ohio, in extreme northeast Ohio and in the union-strong Mahoning Valley, where incumbent Gil Blair was knocked off by Mike Loychik.

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Suburban Women Boosted Democrats But Not Enough To Offset Losses By Unions And Small Towns - The Statehouse News Bureau

mark pazniokas :: ctmirror.org

Rep. Sean Scanlon, D-Guiford, right, and Sen. Matthew Lesser, D-Middletown, have been authored several drafts of the public option bill.

Democratic leaders in the House and Senate, fresh off election wins, are laying out a key goal of the 2021 legislative session two months in advance: passing a public option health insurance plan.

The measure failed in 2019 and was shelved this year when the state suspended its regular session amid the coronavirus pandemic. But Democratic lawmakers say that with COVID-19 cases on the rise and hundreds of thousands out of work, the need to expand government-run health coverage is more pressing now.

At the exact moment when people in Connecticut need health insurance more than ever, we are seeing an increase a huge and disturbing increase in the number of our residents who lack access to affordable, quality health care, said Sen. Matthew Lesser, D-Middletown, a co-chair of the Insurance and Real Estate Committee. A new legislature has been elected that ran on this issue, that has talked about this issue, and that has made promises to the American people in Connecticut that we are going to deliver real reform.

As they have in the past, officials with the states insurance companies expressed opposition to the concept of a public option.

Assuming this is the same version of government-run health care pushed by the comptroller in years past, the health insurers in the state will adamantly oppose it, said Susan Halpin,executive director for the Connecticut Association of Health Plans, which lobbies on behalf of insurers.Its a proposal thats failed before with good reason. It establishes a false promise thats already proven unsustainable in the limited form it exists today.

In an early draft of the 2019 bill, legislators had hoped to open the states health plan to nonprofits and small companies those with 50 or fewer employees and form an advisory council to guide the development of a public option. Comptroller Kevin Lembo said at the time that his office would partner with insurers under an umbrella contract to provide plans outside of the states risk pool. The legislation also would have allowed the state to form ConnectHealth, a program offering low-cost coverage to people without employer-sponsored insurance.

Later that year, legislators unveiled a sweeping overhaul of that bill. The second version would have established the Connecticut Option a state-sponsored plan available to individuals and small businesses funded by reviving the individual mandate, a requirement that people obtain health coverage or face a financial penalty. Legislators also suggested raising money for the program by levying a 1-cent-per-milligram tax on opioid manufacturers. The revised bill, which also included the restoration of cuts to the states Medicaid program and approval to import drugs from Canada, was watered down before passing the House. It did not win approval in the Senate.

The latest proposal, rolled out in March, would have allowed small businesses, nonprofits and labor unions to join the state-operated Connecticut Partnership plan, which already is available to municipalities, and it would have created a third option for individuals on Access Health CT, Connecticuts insurance exchange. Two carriers currently offer individual plans on the exchange. A week after the March 5 release of that concept, the Capitol closed for deep cleaning. Lawmakers did not return for the regular session.

On Thursday, Lembo joined lawmakers in pledging a resurrection of the public option bill. He revealed few details about what the newest version would look like but said officials would again try to use the states purchasing power to negotiate an insurance plan for individuals.

We are very likely to see a leveraging of the state employee pool using that pricing and those 220,000 lives that are in there to get better deals and offer more opportunities, Lembo said. So, leveraging it through partnership, leveraging it through the state employee plan, but setting up different benefit designs for these populations that are affordable and accessible for them, not necessarily the one product that were offering now just to state employees.

The backstop is the state of Connecticut. Im not going to run away from that, he added. But you set your premiums according to the risk profile of the people who are coming in.

Despite President-elect Joseph Bidens support for a public option, Democrats said Thursday that they dont want to wait for the gridlock in Washington, D.C. to subside before making progress. Uncertainty surrounding the balance of power in the U.S. Senate means Bidens health reform agenda may not be successful, they said.

There is not a majority in the United States Senate to support President Biden in his effort to make health care more affordable, which means its going to fall to the states states to act, said Rep. Sean Scanlon, D-Guilford, a co-chair of the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee. Even though we have a new president theres still going to be paralysis there. Thats why its up to us here in Connecticut, because our constituents simply cant wait any longer for the politics of Washington to work in their favor. They need the politics of Hartford to work in their favor.

Republican legislative leaders, who did not participate in the Democrats announcement Thursday, signaled that they would not support a public option bill.

The Democrat proposal of a public option, I fear, will not accomplish our shared goal of reducing costs and increasing accessibility and will simultaneously threaten thousands of good paying jobs, Senate Minority Leader Kevin Kelly, R-Stratford, said. The Democrat plan aims to move insurance jobs under the scope of government, put government in charge of health care with little regulation or requirements to even abide by the Affordable Care Act, and compete with a private industry using taxpayer dollars as a backstop. If claims exceed premiums, taxpayers will be the ones on the hook.

Rep. Vincent Candelora, R-North Branford, said the proposal would threaten jobs in the insurance sector and harm the pandemic recovery we all hope for.

I appreciate Democrats passion in pursuing affordable health care unfortunately, theyve been campaigning for 20 years on the promise of doing something about it but have instead continued to implement more taxes, more consumer-paid assessments, and more regulations that have driven premiums upward, he said. I look forward to learning more about their unwritten proposal.

The Partnership Plan has run multi-million dollar deficits over the past few years, Halpin said. At the same time, it sets the state up to compete with its own signature industry on an un-level playing field. When you peel back the layers of the onion, the proposal just doesnt work and it does more harm than good.

Link:
Public option health insurance in CT is a key priority for Democrats in 2021 - The CT Mirror