Author, Doctor, Speaker, Joseph Bentivegna

Doctor Bentivegna is an ophthalmologist living in Connecticut. He has written numerous op-ed pieces for The Hartford Courant and The New York Times regarding health care, tort reform, and the political situation in Haiti.

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Failure of Lamont’s Toll Plan Shows Lack of Trust in Our Institutions

        In spite of a having a large majority (22-14), Senate Democrats informed Governor Ned Lamont that they will not support his scaled back plan to place tolls - or in Lamont’s Orwellian term “user fees” - on fourteen bridges. This is after the media, multiple civic groups and Connecticut’s corporate leadership have been cheerleading for tolls for the past year. Why?       It is because nobody believes anything Lamont or our institutions tell us.  Lamont’s election victory was due to his promise to only allow tolls on incoming out-of-state trucks. Had he been honest about his real plan to place tolls on Connecticut drivers, he would be comparing the nose of first-growth Bourdeauxs at his Greenwich estate.  But voters expect politicians to lie and may have forgiven Lamont if his latest proposal was not replete with more myths. Let’s take a look. Myth Number 1. The repairs will cost $21 billion.       Connecticut is notorious for low-balling construction and transportation estimates and then shafting the taxpayers. The construction for the ball park that houses the … [Read more...]

If Our Ruling Class Wants to Stay in the Middle East, Bring Back the Draft

             President Trump is being savaged by all sides for his decision to remove our troops from Syria. This allowed Turkey to invade areas occupied by the Kurds, our allies in the fight against ISIS. The House of Representatives voted 354-60 to decry the policy. Newspaper editorials and armchair pundits on Fox News, CNN and MSNBC have berated the President. ABC News even fabricated a fake video of a Turkish attack on the Kurds (it was actually from a shooting range in Kentucky). One pundit in the Wall Street Journal described the President’s policy as “Speak Loudly but Carry a Toothpick.”       But do any of these armchair warriors have any skin in the game? Do President George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton and President Obama, architects of this policy that the President inherited; have to worry about Chelsea, Sasha, Malia, Barbara or Jenna being killed in the mid-East. No, they do not. Why? Because there is no draft.       In the 1960s, while there was still a draft (it applied only to men), the Vietnam War became … [Read more...]

An Update on Justice Ginsburg’s Health

             Regular readers may recall that seven months ago, I wrote an article entitled “Justice Ginsburg is Probably Quite Ill.” To recap briefly, Justice Ginsburg had two malignant tumors removed from her lungs and her physicians stated she was cancer free. Unfortunately, she has now been diagnosed with a recurrence of pancreatic cancer, an entity she was treated for in 2010.       According a statement from the Supreme Court:       "Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg today completed a three-week course of stereotactic ablative radiation therapy at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. The focused radiation treatment began on August 5 and was administered on an outpatient basis to treat a tumor on her pancreas. The abnormality was first detected after a routine blood test in early July, and a biopsy performed on July 31 at Sloan Kettering confirmed a localized malignant tumor.       As part of her treatment, a bile duct stent was placed. The … [Read more...]