HARTFORD — The state Senate’s Democratic majority is at least four votes shy of passing a compromise minimum-wage increase approved last week by the House of Representatives, leaving one of the House speaker’s key bills all but dead in the annual session’s final seven days.

Senate President Pro Tem Donald E. Williams Jr., D-Brooklyn, said he texted House Speaker Christopher G. Donovan, D-Meriden, from the Democratic caucus room Tuesday, telling him he did not see a path toward passing a 25-cent increase in the $8.25 hourly wage.

“Barring some significant turnaround, we have a significant number of folks who would not support the minimum-wage bill as it is,” Williams said.

Senate President Pro Tem Donald E. Williams Jr.

He declined to give a hard vote count, but acknowledged being at least four votes short. Democrats hold 22 of the 36 seats in the Senate. Democrats routinely support raising the minimum wage, but many in both chambers balked at an increase with the economy still fragile.

“It was the timing,” Williams said. “They felt the economic times were not right. They supported minimum wage increases in the past. They strongly supported the earned-income tax credit last year, which provided a boost to low-income workers.”

A spokesman for Donovan acknowledged the speaker is aware of the vote count. Donovan was not immediately available for comment.

On a party-line, election-year vote, the House of Representatives voted 88-62 last week for a compromise to raise the $8.25 minimum wage by 25 cents in each of the next two years, bringing pressure on a reluctant Senate to follow.

Donovan submitted the bill to a vote without a commitment from the Senate to take up the bill, a calculated risk.

His own caucus was lukewarm on an increase this year, but he lost only 10 Democrats, including Rep. William Tong of Stamford, then a candidate for U.S. Senate, and Rep. Timothy Larson of East Hartford, the brother of U.S. Rep. John B. Larson, a Democratic congressional leader.

House Minority Leader Lawrence F. Cafero Jr., R-Norwalk, said he was surprised that the House speaker would tie up the House for a day without knowing if the Senate had the votes for passage.

“I’m appalled. I mean, come on man,” Cafero said. “By the way, I’m probably not as angry as many Democratic legislators are. They were so uncomfortable to make that vote. They only did it with the assurance it would pass the House, the Senate and be signed by the governor.”

Senate Minority Leader John McKinney, R-Fairfield, said he expected that proponents will bring “all kinds of pressure” on Senate Democrats to reconsider.

“I’m not going to hold my breath until midnight May 9,” he said, a reference to the constitutional adjournment deadline for the 2012 session.

To win passage, Donovan, a congressional candidate presiding over his last annual session, accepted a two-thirds reduction in his original proposal, abandoned an automatic cost-of-living provision and delayed implementation from July to January.

But Williams said even the changes were not enough to win support in the Senate.

The setback for Donovan is a potential complication in the session’s last week, when House and Senate leaders routinely hold each other’s bills hostage until favored legislation is passed.

This story was first published on CTMirror.org; Photo by wesport-news.

HAMDEN, CT — Connecticut baseball fans back the New York Yankees over the Boston Red Sox 43 – 38 percent, the fourth straight year of Yankee dominance in the state, according to Quinnipiac University’s annual Connecticut Baseball Poll.

While the Red Sox are the favorites, 46 – 34 percent, of fans over 65 years old, the Bronx Bombers lead in other age groups, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds.  Women fans prefer the Yankees 45 – 39 percent while men back the Bombers 42 – 37 percent.

A total of 53 percent of Connecticut adults say they are “very interested” or “somewhat interested” in Major League Baseball.  Trailing the Yankees and Red Sox in that group are the New York Mets with 7 percent.  No other team scores above 1 percent.

The Yankees are on top 54 – 18 percent in Fairfield County and 46 – 36 percent in New Haven and Middlesex Counties, while the Red Sox lead 47 – 37 percent in Hartford County and 57 – 29 percent in Tolland, Windham and New London Counties.

“The New York Yankees have topped the Boston Red Sox in every one of Quinnipiac University’s 10 annual polls of Connecticut baseball fans, except for a 41 – 40 percent split, tipping to the Red Sox, in 2008,” said Quinnipiac University Poll Director Douglas Schwartz, PhD.  “The Yankees lead is due to their big advantage in Fairfield County.  The Yankees continue to do better among younger fans while the Red Sox are stronger among older fans.”

From April 18 – 23, Quinnipiac University surveyed 1,933 Connecticut adults with a margin of error of +/- 2.2 percentage points.   Live interviewers call landlines and cell phones.

The Quinnipiac University Poll conducts public opinion surveys in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, Virginia, and the nation as a public service and for research.

New America Media, Andrew Lam

SAN FRANCISCO—Recently, in front a packed crowd at Duke University, former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice regretted the failure of passing the comprehensive immigration reform act and the shift in Americans’ attitude toward immigrants.

Accepting and welcoming immigrants “has been at the core of our strength,” she said. “I don’t know when immigrants became the enemy.”

These days it is refreshing, if rare, to hear someone of Rice’s stature to speak on behalf of immigrants. Over the last few years the public discourse has been shrill and, if anything, media coverage seems to stoke anxiety to an unprecedented level.

Instead of a larger narrative on immigration—from culture to economics, from identity to history— what we have now is a public mindset of us versus them, and an overall anti immigrant climate that is both troubling and morally reprehensible.

America’s Difficult Love Story

Yet I often see the story of immigration in America as a kind of difficult love story.

Take the scandal involving Sheriff Paul Babeu of Pinal County, Arizona. Running for Congress, the sheriff is tough on undocumented immigration–but he had a secret: a love affair with Jose Orozco, an immigrant whose legal status remains in question.

The romance went sour, alas, and the immigrant lover alleged that the sheriff threatened to deport him if he came out with their story. Babeu vehemently denied the deportation threat. Orozco promptly filed a lawsuit.

What struck me most about this story is the contradictory nature of the relationship and how emblematic it is to the larger American narrative. We want and benefit from immigrants’ cheap labor, but we don’t want to acknowledge our relationship with them. We need them; we don’t want to be associated with them.

Meg Whitman, the billionaire who ran for governor in California in 2010, wanted to “hold employers accountable for hiring only documented workers.” But she didn’t include herself.

The year before Whitman’s campaign, she’d fired Nicky Diaz Santillan, who in a spectacular press conference revealed that she was undocumented. She had been taking care of the Whitman’s household for nearly a decade.

When Santillan reportedly asked Whitman for help finding an immigration attorney after she was fired, Whitman allegedly told her, “You don’t know me and I don’t know you.”

In the war on terrorism, the immigrant is often the scapegoat. He becomes a kind of insurance policy against the effects of recession. By blaming him, the pressure valve is regulated in time of crisis. The master narrative regarding immigration seems to require those it vilifies to obey the rule of silence. Their tongues are often kept in check through the threat of imprisonment and deportation.

God forbid if they become articulate, organize, participate in union politics and demand better wages and fair treatment. God forbid if they hold a press conference or get together to make an updated movie version of The Help.

Immigrants: Canaries in the Coal Mine

Yet, in the context of a free and open society, the immigrant is often the canary in the coalmine. The horror stories from detention centers are just too many:

*Pregnant women shackled to a hospital bed while giving birth;*Inmates shackled and paraded in pink underwear on the streets of Arizona, a scene reminiscent of Abu Ghraib;*Rape incidents uninvestigated;

*Healthcare dangerously lacking in immigrant detention facilities where the suicide levels are alarming;

*Deportees forced to take psychotropic drugs so they act docile in their long journey back to their countries of origin.

Human-rights abuse by law enforcement in America’s Southwest is so notorious that organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are ringing alarm bells for the lack of accountability. This terrible treatment reflects a legal system that’s gone so badly wrong that America’s very humanity is now put in question.

“You don’t know me and I don’t know you.”

Perhaps we don’t want to know about the tragedy and psychological and economic impact on tens of thousands of American-born children whose parents have been taken away by the authorities. But it is a fact that we are in the process of creating a whole generation of Americans who are becoming permanent outsiders, a vast second class of citizens.

When a society hides behind the apparatus of draconian policies, allowing the authorities almost unchecked power to detain and deport, the only logical outcome is injustice and cruelty.

Missing Voices

Missing from the national conversation are voices like that of the former secretary of state’s, of pro-immigration reformers and civil rights leaders, who can speak on behalf of those who have no voice. Where are the leaders who can speak to the idea that it is not alien to American interests, but very much in our socioeconomic interest–not to mention our spiritual health–to integrate immigrants, that our nation functions best when we welcome newcomers and help them participate fully in our society?

What’s missing is compassion.

If I am sympathetic to the plight of immigrants of all kinds, I have good reason: I was once a Vietnamese refugee. Like millions who left Vietnam, my family and I fled that country illegally, without passports. We entered another country without visas. That I am a writer and journalist today is due to the American generosity, my Americanization story is a love story, a success story.

But that generosity has all but faded. The United States is no doubt at a very important crossroads. In one direction is a country ruled by distrust, xenophobia and continual exploitation—with its need to strengthen law enforcement. That choice offers us a society willing to look away while an entire population lives in fear, in a de facto police state. It’s a country in which the immigrant becomes indeed the enemy.

In the other direction is a global society defined by openness and with the understanding that we as a nation have always depended and thrived on the energy, ideas and contributions of immigrants. It’s a promised land that can only be envisioned by the newcomer to our shore, who still dreams the dream. For even if we don’t know it yet, we all desperately need to be reborn through his eyes.

Andrew Lam is an editor of New America Media and the author of East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres and Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora. His book of short stories, Birds of Paradise, is due out in 2013.

HARTFORD — Mayor Pedro E. Segarra on Tuesday will kick off a citywide, weeklong celebration of “progress and innovation in Hartford’s parks.”

The event, “Hartford Beautiful, A Celebration of Our Parks,” will begin at 5:00 a.m. Tuesday morning with “Wake Up Wired,” which will include an early morning cleanup, an overview of the week’s events and a special announcement at Hyland Park on Summit Terrace. Yes, that was 5.a.m. as stated in the press release.

“Our parks are snapshots of our history, and spaces that belong to all of us,” Segarra said. “By highlighting all there is to celebrate in our City parks, it is my hope that everyone will take pride in and ownership of these treasures every day.”

Segarra will join representatives from the City’s Departments of Public Works and Marketing, Events and Cultural Affairs, the Recreation Division, the Parks & Recreation Advisory Commission and the Knox Parks Foundation for a series of park-centered events.

These events include:

Tuesday, April 24 – Going Green – Projects, Preview and Presentations: From 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., Department of Public Works Director Kevin Burnham and Parks Operations Manager Jack Hale will host a presentation on parks projects at the Hartford Public Library’s Center for Contemporary Culture, 500 Main St.

The dialogue will focus on recent accomplishments, as well as current and future projects. In addition, progress on the recommendations made by the Green Ribbon Task Force and renewed efforts of the Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission will be discussed.

Thursday, April 26 – Olmsted Day – “Rediscovering Old North Cemetery”: At 5:30 p.m., Dr. Andrew Walsh, Norma Williams and Phillip Barlow will present a program that focuses on the history of Old North Cemetery and the many famous individuals buried there. Among them is Frederick Law Olmsted, whose firm designed the Hartford park system and Central Park in New York City. The discussion will be held at the Hartford Public Library – Center for Contemporary Culture.

Also on Thursday, the various “Friends Of” parks groups will host an open house, detailing the work of parks groups and how those interested can get involved.

Friday, April 27 – TGIA! (Thank Goodness It’s Arbor Day): From 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., Mayor Segarra will join volunteers from The Hartford and others for a tree planting in recognition of Arbor Day. Additionally, Riverfront Recapture will host a Community Service Day with students from the University of Hartford.

Finally, DPW crews will be on site each day to perform improvements to Hartford parks throughout the City. For more information on the DPW schedule, visit the following link: http://mayor.hartford.gov/documents/park_week_plan.pdf.

By Mark Pazniokas and Keith M. Phaneuf

HARTFORD – The state Senate capped a day of debate Thursday on police behavior by overwhelmingly adopting a measure to revitalize faltering state efforts to monitor and prohibit racial profiling of motorists.

Earlier Thursday the Democrat-controlled Senate voted 24-11, largely along party lines, to approve a bill to protect citizens’ right to record police officers performing their duties. Senators passed the anti-profiling bill 31-3.

Both measures now head to the House of Representatives.

Sen. Eric Coleman, D-Bloomfield, who is African-American, said neither his son, nor any other person, should be stopped by police or otherwise considered a threat because of any attributes determined solely by birth.

“I don’t want just his appearance, what he looks like because of race or ethnicity, to be interpreted as suspicious,” Coleman said. “I think that is entirely inappropriate.”

Connecticut’s 13-year-old racial profiling law has come under increasing criticism in recent years. Reports from the Hartford Courant have shown efforts to collect and analyze traffic stops in relation to race, ethnicity and gender have failed at numerous levels.

• The state’s African-American Affairs Commission never has met its statutory obligation to file an annual report on profiling.
• That panel’s annual budget, which stands at $220,551, consistently fell  far short, year after year, of the level needed to prepare an analysis of statewide profiling data. Nonpartisan legislative researchers estimate such a report would cost about $600,000.
• A recent study concluded that only 27 police departments consistently file annual reports required by state law to show whether minorities are targeted in traffic stops. No one has analyzed the limited data that is filed since 2001.

The anti-profiling bill sets standards for reporting the information and shifts responsibility for its analysis from the Commission on African-American Affairs to the Office of Policy and Management, which has staff and resources unavailable to the commission.

The new legislation also allows OPM to withhold public safety-related state funds from communities that don’t comply.

Though most GOP senators backed the anti-profiling bill, Canton Republican Kevin Witkos, a 28-year veteran of that community’s police force, argued that while profiling is wrong, the measure was flawed.

Rather than requiring officers to guess what a motor vehicle operators’ race and ethnicity might be, Witkos said the legislature should mandate that drivers provide this information on their driver’s license.

But Coleman argued this would work against efforts to end profiling, adding that its crucial to know what an officer’s beliefs about an operator were when the decision to stop the motorist was made.

Witkos also tried unsuccessfully to amend the bill to ensure that state funds couldn’t be stripped from community policing or youth athletic programs tied to municipal departments found not in compliance with profiling reporting rules. “It’s not fair to the other areas of the police department that do good work,” he said.

Prior to Thursday’s debate, Senate Democratic leaders held a press conference with the Rev. James Manship, a Roman Catholic priest closely tied to both issues.

Manship also had been arrested as he recorded police officers whom he says were harassing Latinos in East Haven, where a federal investigation into racial profiling led to the arrests of police officers and the resignation of the chief.

“I just think both these bills strengthen transparency and when things are transparent, it strengthens trust,” said Manship, the pastor of St. Rose of Lima in the Fair Haven section of New Haven.

His parishioners include Senate Majority Leader Martin Looney, D-New Haven, a sponsor of the recording bill. A similar version passed the Senate last year, but failed from inaction in the House.

“We need to make sure the public is aware of its rights in this regard,” Looney said of the recording bill, “and the police are also cautioned about not crossing a line in this area.”

“Sometimes we become aware of incidents where police officers overzealous or abusive,” Coleman said when he presented the bill regarding video recording. It provides an important check on the “broad and enormous authority that’s been entrusted to law enforcement agents,” he said.

The bill creates a legal cause of action for people who are improperly stopped by police from photographing or recording officers, though it hardly draws a bright line dividing permissible monitoring from impermissible interference.

But it also states that police officers will not be liable for stoping a citizen from taping provided the officer was seeking to protect public safety, preserve the integrity of a crime scene or investigation, safeguard the privacy interests of a crime victim or other individual, or if such action was necessary to preserve public safety.

But Republicans, including those both opposing and supporting the measure, argued it would expose police officers to frivolous lawsuits.

Witkos voted for the video recording bill, but said it wasn’t essential, since most officers already are on camera a majority of the time.

“New recruits are taught to act responsible, because there are cameras on you 24/7,” Witkos said.

Many police cruisers are equipped with cameras, and some officers have them fixed to their lapels to provide a clear video record of their actions, said Sen. John A. Kissel, R-Enfield.

“I don’t want law enforcement hesitating,” said Kissel. The Enfield lawmaker tried unsuccessfully to amend the measure to stipulate that officers sued for blocking video-taping would presumed to be doing so appropriately unless plaintiffs in a civil suit could prove otherwise.

On April 22, more than one billion people around the world will participate in the 42nd annual Earth Day to help raise awareness of global environmental concerns.

For Earth Day and every day, African Travel, Inc. will work to bring more awareness to the plight of Gorillas and Chimpanzees in the wild, organizers said.

This plan is a part of their efforts they offer special packages to see incredible creatures in their natural habitats while simultaneously working to protect them.

Mountain gorillas are among the most famous of all endangered animals. These majestic animals are lately finding it very hard to survive, and as recently as 2006, they were at the brink of extinction. Fortunately, recent conservation efforts have been quite successful, the primary factor responsible for this positive trend being an effort by organizations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda to protect the gorillas and their habitat.

Another significant contributor towards protection of the Mountain Gorillas is tourism. When travelers visit Africa using a knowledgeable company such as African Travel, they are making a huge contribution to the conservation of Mountain Gorillas. Despite these positive efforts, Mountain Gorillas are still under threat of extinction, and more conservation efforts will be necessary to remove gorillas from the endangered animals list.

Organizers said it is now an excellent time to visit these magnificent animals in their natural habitat.

By joining an African Travel safari to view Mountain Gorillas and Chimpanzees, Americans can help the cause while enjoying an exotic vacation.

Two African Travel, Inc. safaris where you can see these beautiful animals in the wild:

The Pearl Of Africa—8 days. Uganda, Rwanda. Renowned for its physical beauty, Uganda offers a variety of wildlife viewing experiences in the Kibale Forest, Queen Elizabeth National Park and Bwindi . The Bwindi Impenetrable Forest is a sanctuary for 13 different species of primate, colobus monkeys, chimpanzees and many birds (such as hornbills and turacos).  The photographic opportunities are plentiful as you experience Uganda, a country considered to be a source of the Nile River.

Remote Tanzania: Katavi and Mahale—9 days. Tanzania is one of the most spectacular places for wildlife viewing in Africa, and African Travel Inc.’s unforgettable adventure to Remote Tanzania: Katavi and Mahale will surpass your wildest expectations. Wildlife viewing in Katavi can be nothing short of breathtaking, especially the huge herds of buffalo and amazing numbers of hippo. Observe them as they groom, wrestle and forage across the leafy floor.

For more information and reservations contact your favorite Travel Professional, or visit www.africantravelinc.com.

By Keith M. Phaneuf

HARTFORD — The fate of a proposed 50-cent increase in Connecticut’s minimum wage still hung in political limbo Friday, even though the legislature’s budget-writing panel added its endorsement to the idea.

While the Democratic-controlled Appropriations Committee approved the wage hike bill by a vote of 29-20, largely along party lines, lawmakers from both sides of the political aisle acknowledged that the issue may not be settled until just before the 2012 session ends May 9.

The bill now heads to the House of Representatives.

“It doesn’t do an awful lot, but it does a little bit of something, and people in this state deserve a little something,” said Sen. Edith G. Prague, D-Columbia, co-chairwoman of the Labor and Public Employees Committee as well as a member of the Appropriations panel. “Hopefully it will help some people living in desperate poverty. It’s not going to break the bank. … I really think this is something we owe to the workers of the state of Connecticut.”

The state minimum wage of $8.25 per hour would rise to $8.75 next January, and then to $9.25 Jan. 1, 2014. Each January after that, the wage would rise in proportion to the Consumer Price Index, one of the primary measures of inflation.

Democratic lawmakers argued that the increase not only would assist young, part-time workers saving for school and some of Connecticut’s poorest working households, but also would provide a modest economic boost. That’s because many of those who work for minimum wage are able to save little or none of their earnings, they said.

“They will be spending it because they have to spend it … for rent or for food,” said Sen. Edwin Gomes, D-Bridgeport. “You are looking at a consumer who is going to spend every dime because he can’t do anything else.”

Democrats also argued that minors and other young workers earning minimum wage are doing more than saving for college. “They have to bring home money to help their families, and it’s not just in the Hartford, Bridgeport and New Haven areas,” said Rep. Toni Walker, D-New Haven, co-chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee. “It’s kids all over this state who are looking for help, who are looking for employment.”

But Republican legislators argued that raising the minimum wage while businesses are still recovering from the last recession is a ticket to higher unemployment. Rather than boost overall salary accounts, businesses will reduce hours and jobs to pay for the minimum wage hike, they argued.

“A lot of people are going to lose their jobs because of this,” said Rep. Jason Perillo, R-Shelton. “A lot of people are going to lose their jobs because of this.”

The ranking GOP senator on the panel, Robert Kane of Watertown, tried unsuccessfully to amend the bill to freeze the minimum wage for seasonal employees and for workers age 22 and younger, arguing this group is particularly vulnerable to job cuts.

“The reality of the situation is this population has 25 percent unemployment,” Kane said. “We’re not looking to hinder anyone. We’re going to help people get employment.”

Lobbyists for several key business groups opposed to the increase said they think many lawmakers are reluctant to boost the minimum wage now.

“Our sense is there are members in both chambers, both caucuses, who understand this is not the right time to increase the minimum wage, particularly for small retailers,” said Tim Phelan, president of the Connecticut Retail Merchants Association.

The executive director of the Connecticut Restaurants Association, Nicole Griffin, said, “Our members are still trying to recover and are just starting to see an upswing.”

And Connecticut Business and Industry Association assistant counsel Kia Murrell said boosting the minimum wage can have a ripple effect that reaches businesses that already pay more. “When you raise the floor, businesses find you have to bump up middle-tier workers as well,” she said.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, a Democrat, also has been cautious about a minimum wage increase at this time.

Malloy spokesman Andrew Doba noted that the governor is “a longtime supporter of the minimum wage,” but also said that “given the current business climate, the governor wants to ensure that any new legislation won’t harm our growing recovery.”

Connecticut created more than 17,000 private sector jobs last year, Doba said, adding that “it’s progress we need to continue. (The governor) looks forward to watching the debate on this issue as it proceeds through the legislature.”

First published at CTmirror.org

WASHINGTON, DC — The Internal Revenue Service today reminded taxpayers that quick and easy solutions are available if they can’t file their returns or pay their taxes on time, and they can even request relief online.

The IRS says don’t panic. Tax-filing extensions are available to taxpayers who need more time to finish their returns. Remember, this is an extension of time to file; not an extension of time to pay. However, taxpayers who are having trouble paying what they owe usually qualify for payment plans and other relief. Last month, for example, the IRS, as part of its Fresh Start initiative announced penalty relief for unemployed taxpayers and self-employed individuals whose income has dropped.

Either way, taxpayers will avoid stiff penalties if they file either a regular income tax return or a request for a tax-filing extension by this year’s April 17 deadline. Taxpayers should file, even if they can’t pay the full amount due.

Here are further details on the options available.

More Time to File

People who haven’t finished filling out their return can get an automatic six-month extension. The fastest and easiest way to get the extra time is through the Free File link on IRS.gov . In a matter of minutes, anyone, regardless of income, can use this free service to electronically request an automatic tax-filing extension on Form 4868.

Filing this form gives taxpayers until Oct. 15 to file a return. To get the extension, taxpayers must estimate their tax liability on this form and should also pay any amount due.

By properly filing this form, a taxpayer will avoid the late-filing penalty, normally five percent per month based on the unpaid balance, that applies to returns filed after the deadline. In addition, any payment made with an extension request will reduce or eliminate interest and late-payment penalties that apply to payments made after April 17. The current interest rate three percent per year, compounded daily, and the late-payment penalty is normally 0.5 percent per month.

Besides Free File, taxpayers can choose to request an extension through a paid tax preparer, using tax-preparation software or by filing a paper Form 4868, available on IRS.gov. Of the 10.5 million extension forms received by the IRS last year, about 4 million were filed electronically.

Some taxpayers get more time to file without having to ask for it. These include:

• Taxpayers abroad. U.S. citizens and resident aliens who live and work abroad, as well as members of the military on duty outside the U.S., have until June 15 to file. Tax payments are still due April 17.

• Members of the military and others serving in Iraq, Afghanistan or other combat zone localities. Typically, taxpayers can wait until at least 180 days after they leave the combat zone to file returns and pay any taxes due. For details, see Extensions of Deadlines in Publication 3 , Armed Forces Tax Guide.

• People affected by certain tornadoes, severe storms, floods and other recent natural disasters. Currently, parts of Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia are covered by federal disaster declarations, and affected individuals and businesses in these areas have until May 31 to file and pay.

Easy Ways to E-Pay

Taxpayers with a balance due IRS now have several quick and easy ways to electronically pay what they owe. They include:

• Electronic Federal Tax Payment System (EFTPS). This free service gives taxpayers a safe and convenient way to pay individual and business taxes by phone or online. To enroll or for more information, call 800-316-6541 or visit WWW.EFTPS.GOV.

• Electronic funds withdrawal. E-file and e-pay in a single step.

• Credit or debit card. Both paper and electronic filers can pay their taxes by phone or online through any of several authorized credit and debit card processors. Though the IRS does not charge a fee for this service, the card processors do. For taxpayers who itemize their deductions, these convenience fees can be claimed on Schedule A Line 23.
Taxpayers who choose to pay by check or money order should make the payment out to the “United States Treasury.” Write “2011 Form 1040,” name, address, daytime phone number and Social Security number on the front of the check or money order. To help insure that the payment is credited promptly, also enclose a Form 1040-V payment voucher.

More Time to Pay

Taxpayers who have finished their returns should file by the regular April 17 deadline, even if they can’t pay the full amount due. In many cases, those struggling with unpaid taxes qualify for one of several relief programs, including those recently expanded under the IRS “Fresh Start” initiative. These include the following:

• Most people can set up a payment agreement with the IRS on line in a matter of minutes. Those who owe $50,000 or less in combined tax, penalties and interest can use the Online Payment Agreement to set up a monthly payment agreement for up to six years. Taxpayers can choose this option even if they have not yet received a bill or notice from the IRS. Alternatively, taxpayers can request a payment agreement by filing Form 9465-FS. This form can be downloaded from IRS.gov and mailed along with a tax return, bill or notice.

• Most unemployed filers and self-employed individuals whose business income dropped substantially can apply for a six-month extension of time to pay. Eligible taxpayers will not be charged a late-payment penalty if they pay any tax, penalty and interest due by Oct. 15, 2012. Taxpayers qualify if they were unemployed for any 30-day period between Jan. 1, 2011 and April 17, 2012. Self-employed people qualify if their business income declined 25 percent or more in 2011, due to the economy. Income limits and other special rules apply. Apply using Form 1127-A.

• Some struggling taxpayers may qualify for an offer-in-compromise. This is an agreement between a taxpayer and the IRS that settles the taxpayer’s tax liabilities for less than the full amount owed. Generally, an offer will not be accepted if the IRS believes the liability can be paid in full as a lump sum or through a payment agreement. The IRS looks at the taxpayer’s income and assets to make a determination regarding the taxpayer’s ability to pay.

Details on all filing and payment options are on IRS.gov.

By Keith M. Phaneuf

HARTFORD — On an 86-62 vote, the House of Representatives gave final legislative approval Wednesday night to a bill repealing the death penalty for future crimes, leaving Connecticut one step away from becoming the 17th state to abolish capital punishment.

The bill, which Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has pledged to sign, advanced after a 9 1/2-hour debate focused largely on a provision that still mandates capital punishment for Connecticut’s 11 death row inmates.

The bill passed with votes from 78 of 99 Democrats and eight of 52 Republicans. Senate Democrats passed the bill 20-16 last week, with two Democrats joining all 14 Republicans in opposition.

In place of the existing crime of capital felony, the bill creates a new crime of murder with special circumstances, punishable by life in prison without chance of release.

“Despite having the death penalty in oiur society here in Connecticut for several hundred years … it certainly hasn’t eradicated evil from our society,” said House Majority Leader J. Brendan Sharkey, D-Hamden. “If we as human beings created laws that reciprocate the evil that’s perpetrated on society, are they really protecting us? … Our laws more project our better selves.”

Though Connecticut imposes the death sentence on only the most horrific of crimes, Rep. Terry Backer, D-Stratford, noted that there have been nearly 290 post-conviction exonerations of death row inmates in the United States since the late 1970s.

“I am torn in two,” he said, “but it is my innate feeling that government makes mistakes.”

“We must always be aware that government makes mistakes and the death penalty is irreversible,” said Rep. Mary Mushinsky, D-Wallingford. Recounting the tale of Kenneth Ireland Jr., Mushinksy noted how the resident of her town served 21 years in prison until DNA evidence cleared him in 2009 of a wrongful murder conviction.

Individuals sentenced under the new law would be provided with no more than two hours of activity per day and permitted no contact during social visits, Fox said. They also would be housed separately from others, escorted on all movements, transferred to a new cell every 90 days and subjected to at least two searches per week.

Minority Republicans focused much of their opposition to a controversial legal assertion first offered by Malloy during the 2010 gubernatorial campaign: that Connecticut could repeal capital punishment for future crimes without lifting that penalty for those already on death row.

Only New Mexico has a similar law.

Amid that 2010 campaign, Steven Hayes, one of the two suspects in the 2007 Cheshire murder of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters, would be convicted of the crime. His accomplice, Joshua Komisarjevsky, was convicted last October. Both have been sentenced to death.

“This bill hangs together on a peculiar bargain made between morality and politics,” said Rep. John Hetherington, R-New Canaan.

House Minority Leader Lawrence F. Cafero Jr., R-Norwalk, who supports Connecticut’s death penalty, recalled several past debates when repeal advocates cited moral objections, fears of wrongful convictions, or even the lengthy, numerous appeals that make actual imposition of the death penalty very rare.

“They were principled debate that were felt with all our heart and soul,” he said. “And I’m sorry to say that today is different.”

Cafero said it is “illogical” and “impossible” to legislate an end to capital punishment — except for 11 people. “How can you say that? How can you justify that?”

“You either support the death penalty and taking somebody’s life or you don’t,” said Rep. Themis Klarides, R-Woodbridge. “You can’t support it for these guys, but not for these guys.”

Fox said that should a court rule that Connecticut cannot impose the death penalty on those convicted prior to this legislation’s enactment, then those on death row would have their sentences converted to life imprisonment under high security without the chance of parole.

Before Wednesday’s House debate, Cafero handed out portions of the transcript from the Oct. 5, 2010, forum between Malloy and GOP gubernatorial nominee Tom Foley, a televised event in Hartford that happened the same day that Hayes was convicted.

Foley pledged to veto any repeal, arguing that otherwise Hayes and Komisarjevsky would escape execution. But Malloy — already on record as favoring repeal — said he’d ensure that such a change wouldn’t affect those already sentenced to death.

“What I’ve said is any legislation that I would sign would be prospective, it would be out into the future,” Malloy said. “I’ve guaranteed that it would be drafted in such a way as to guarantee that these two individuals — if we ever had a workable death penalty — would be put to death, if that’s the sentence of the jury.”

Cafero also charged the Democratic governor’s administration with “misleading” legislators into believing that a similar forward-looking death penalty repeal statute, adopted in 2009 in New Mexico, had survived a constitutional challenge there. Fox acknowledged during the debate that a challenge on grounds that the prospective system is unconstitutional still is pending in that state.

Malloy’s senior adviser, Roy Occhiogrosso, said Wednesday that the administration hasn’t misrepresented the New Mexico death penalty discussion. “That’s not true,” he said. “I know Representative Cafero enjoys playing politics. I would hope he would not play politics with this issue.”

“I’m pleased the House passed the bill, and when it gets to my desk I will sign it,” Malloy wrote in a statement released immediately after the vote. “I want to be careful in the tone of my remarks, out of respect for the gravity of the issue at hand and out of respect for people on both sides of the issue.

“When I sign this bill, Connecticut will join 16 other states and almost every other industrialized nation in moving toward what I believe is better public policy. For decades, we have not had a workable death penalty. Only one person’s been executed in Connecticut in the last 52 years, and he volunteered for it. Going forward, we will have a system that allows us to put these people away for life, in living conditions none of us would want to experience. Let’s throw away the key and have them spend the rest of their natural lives in jail.”

Rep. Gary Holder-Winfield, D-New Haven, one of the legislature’s most vocal opponents of capital punishment since he joined the House in 2009, said it became clear that a repeal that was not prospective would not pass. He added that he believes it is better to stop some executions in the future than none at all.

“It’s not a scheme. It’s the way things operate around here,” he said. “Being a purist, sometimes, is not a good thing. … This is not about the polls. This is who we are and what we believe.”

“If I had my way, we would have no death penalty, for everyone, including the 11 on death row,” he said.

Republicans offered several amendments to the bill Wednesday, all rejected in votes largely along party lines.

Hetherington proposed language that would have reinstated capital punishment in all instances should the courts rule the death penalty couldn’t be imposed exclusively on past convictions. “If the bargain crumbles in part, it must crumble in whole,” he said.

Other failed GOP amendments would have retained the death penalty for those who murder police officers or prison guards, those who both murder and commit sexual assault, or for those who kill two or more people through an act of terrorism.

Though most Democrats backed repeal, a handful argued for retaining capital punishment.

“I wish that our Heavenly Father would bless me … (but) I cannot get over the loss of my brother,” said Rep. Larry Butler, D-Waterbury, who recounted the loss of his younger brother to murder in 1985.

Rep. Mary D. Fritz of Wallingford said she fears those sentenced to life imprisonment could have their sentences scaled back by future legislatures. “Who’s to say 10 years down the road, 15 years down the road, another group of legislators won’t come in and say, ‘What is wrong with those people in 2012?’” she said. “We are lawmakers. We make laws, we change laws.”

A Democrat who voted for repeal in 2009, but opposed it Wednesday, Rep. Ernest Hewett of New London, said he was swayed by considering the murder of 8-year-old Leroy “B.J.” Brown.

Russell Peeler Jr. was sentenced to death in 2007 after being convicted of ordering his brother to kill the boy and his mother, Karen Clarke. The 8-year-old was to be the key witness against Peeler in a case involving a drug-related shooting.

“Here was a little 8-year-old kid who had no voice of his own,” Hewett said, adding that he fears the prospective approach taken in the bill ultimately will lift the death sentence for all on death row.

“The appeals will be filed,” Hewett said. “They will win and no one on death row will get the death penalty.”

“It’s important that we not abandon this tool that we have,” said Rep. Jeff Berger, a retired Waterbury police officer, who argued that capital punishment is an effective crime deterrent.

But Rep. Marie Kirkley-Bey, D-Hartford, said meeting with mothers of crime victims in Hartford has shown her they seek justice, not necessarily death for criminals. “They want closure,” she said. “They want to be able to go to sleep at night and know these people are off the street.”

Kirkley-Bey also rejected the argument that capital punishment is a deterrent. “There’s not a person in Connecticut who committed a crime, a murder, who said, ‘I’m not going to do that because they have the death penalty,’” she said. “I don’t believe that and, if you do, you’re crazy.”

Once Malloy signs the repeal legislation, Connecticut would join 16 other states that ban capital punishment: Alaska, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

By Elena Shore, NAM

The killing of unarmed Florida teenager Trayvon Martin has ignited a dialogue about race among Latino journalists and bloggers over the complex racial identity of Latinos, and the simplified – and sometimes inaccurate — ways some media have reported it.

Coverage of the Trayvon Martin case has varied widely in different media sectors. Suspected shooter George Zimmerman, whose mother is Peruvian, has been labeled “white,” “Hispanic” and “white Hispanic.”

Meanwhile, the Pew Hispanic Center last week released a report that found that the majority of Latinos do not in fact identify as Latino or Hispanic at all, but by their country of origin. The study, “When Labels Don’t Fit: Hispanics and Their Views of Identity,” adds a new twist to the debate over whether suspected shooter George Zimmerman is Hispanic: If the majority of Latinos/Hispanics don’t identify as such, perhaps that is the wrong question to be asking.

‘Hispanics Can Be of Any Race’

“As a Hispanic, watching the media’s use of terms like ‘white’ and ‘Hispanic’ and ‘Latino’ in the Zimmerman-Martin case has been an occasion for much eye-rolling,” writes Ryan W. McMaken for the libertarian LRC Blog. “The way the press uses these terms betrays just how completely ignorant most reporters and talking heads are about even the basics of ethnicity and race in this country.”

The press labeled Zimmerman as white, he writes, “because that’s what the media has determined will produce the most fertile ground for ‘racial’ conflict.”

“I don’t know why this is so hard for people to grasp, but let’s just make this clear: According to anthropologists, ethnologists, historians and census takers, ‘Hispanic’ or ‘Latino’ is not a racial designation. It is a term that denotes ethnicity,” McMaken writes.

“Hispanics can be of any race. There are white Hispanics, black Hispanics, and even Asian Hispanics. Examples would be former Mexican president Vicente Fox, Cuban musician Ibrahim Ferrer, and former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori, respectively. There are also, of course, mestizo Hispanics, such as Benito Juarez.”

‘How we see, hear and live with each other’

Dallas-based blogger Marisa Tresviño writes for the blog LatinaLista that the Trayvon Martin case – and the media coverage that has revolved around it – has brought to the surface underlying attitudes about race in America.

“This case has stirred emotions that have always existed but were buried so deeply that it took a perceived outrage to galvanize national unity on an issue that should have been on the front burner of the national dialogue long ago — how we see, hear and live with each other. In other words, race relations.”

The United States may be a country built on immigration, she writes, “yet we live with this prevailing notion, however subconscious, that you don’t belong unless you’re white.”

“The likelihood of another Trayvon Martin-Zimmerman confrontation is highly probable,” Tresviño concludes, “unless the national dialogue seriously starts to include addressing a topic that is long overdue and has a shorter and shorter fuse.”

‘Initially It Was Just Black and White’

Conservative media, meanwhile, criticized Latino organizations for their “silence” on the case, and for not standing behind Zimmerman. But Latino advocates say these remarks take away from the real issue, reports Soni Sangha for Fox News Latino.

“We have paradigms in this country: Initially it was just black and white,” Lisa Navarette, a spokeswoman for the National Council of La Raza, told Fox News Latino. “This is complicated because the media tried to put it into that paradigm but it didn’t fit.”

“This is much more complex than simply saying this guy is Hispanic and we [Hispanics] have to defend Hispanics,” Angelo Falcon, president of the National Institute for Latino Policy, told Fox News Latino. “There is a whole question going on like, ‘Are Hispanics capable of being racist?’ ‘Why are they calling him a white Hispanic?’… That shows a lack of understanding about the Latino community.”

‘Dividing Blacks and Latinos’ or ‘Bringing the Communities Together’?

Some Latino groups, meanwhile, took Geraldo Rivera to task for his comment that the hoodie worn by Trayvon Martin was as much responsible for his death as the man who shot him. A group of community activists calling themselves Latinos For Trayvon Martin accused Rivera of dividing blacks and Latinos.

At a news conference at Hostos Community College in the Bronx last Thursday, they called for the arrest of George Zimmerman. The action was a response to what they saw as an attempt by “some in the mainstream media” to “play the ‘Hispanic card’ to transform what appears to be a racially motivated murder to a Black-Brown division.”

“George Zimmerman is half Latino, but his mentality appears to be completely white supremacist. We suspect that Geraldo Rivera’s mentality is not far from Zimmerman’s,” wrote community activists José Alfaro, Ramon Jimenez, Esperanza Martell, Radhames Perez, José LaSalle, Rafael Sencion Marina Ortiz and Zenaida Mendez.

Rivera responded in a column on Fox News Latino, writing, “That provable falsehood cannot be tolerated.”

On the contrary, he writes, “If anything, isn’t the reaction to the tragedy bringing the communities together to express shared outrage?”

‘Irrational Fear’

Regardless of who perpetrated the crime, the case was a clear example of racial profiling, write editors of Spanish-language news network ImpreMedia.

“It is tragic that the mere presence of an African American teen walking at night is seen as a threat. But it’s even worse when legally, this mistaken perception is enough to justify a murder,” according to an editorial in New York’s Spanish-language daily El Diario/La Prensa.

“What happened speaks of racism in our society, which is reflected in irrational fear,” editors write.