Steady Habits: A CT Mirror Podcast
by The Connecticut Mirror
Welcome to Steady Habits: A CT Mirror Podcast, hosted by John Dankosky. Our goal is to foster meaningful conversations with newsmakers and the journalists who cover them. We're planning to dig into Connecticut's biggest stories in policy and politics. Let's get started.
Episodes
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Steady Habits Presents: This Could Work! with Athletic Brewing
CT Mirror State Policy Editor Erica E. Phillips sat down with Bill Shufelt and John Walker of Milford’s Athletic Brewing Company on March 19, 2025 at Stamford’s Ferguson Library. Driven by a mission to make non-alcoholic beer mainstream, Bill and John first began test-brewing in a garage in...
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Steady Habits Presents: This Could Work! with André Swanston
Join CT Mirror Policy Editor Erica E. Phillips as she sits down with Connecticut’s most successful entrepreneurs to explore their origin stories, how they turned their first dollar, and why Connecticut was the place to make it happen. UConn graduate and serial entrepreneur André Swanston achieved…
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Steady Habits Presents: In the Room with Linda Greenhouse
In The Room is an in-person, monthly interview series with Connecticut’s top elected officials and political experts. Host John Dankosky brings a new approach to political interviews, exploring the policy and the people behind the policy. In this episode Dankosky interviews former Supreme Court...
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Steady Habits Presents: In the Room with Treasurer Erick Russell
In The Room is an in-person, monthly interview series with Connecticut’s top elected officials. Host John Dankosky brings a new approach to political interviews, exploring the policy and the people behind the policy. In the fourth event of the series, Dankosky interviews State Treasurer Erick...
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Steady Habits Presents: In the Room with AG William Tong
In The Room is an in-person, monthly interview series with Connecticut’s top elected officials. Host John Dankosky brings a new approach to political interviews, exploring the policy and the people behind the policy. In the third event of the series, Dankosky interviews Attorney General William...
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Steady Habits Presents: In the Room with Gov. Ned Lamont
In The Room is a new, in-person, monthly interview series with Connecticut’s top elected officials. Host John Dankosky brings a new approach to political interviews, exploring the policy and the people behind the policy. In the second event of the series, Dankosky interviews Gov. Ned Lamont at...
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Steady Habits Presents: In the Room with Chris Murphy
In The Room is a monthly, in-person interview series with top elected officials at locations throughout the state. In this series, host John Dankosky bring a new approach to political interviews — exploring both the policy and the people behind the policy. This episode, Senator Chris Murphy spoke...
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Probation, parole and commutations: The Breakdown
Community Editorial Board Editor Mercy Quaye hosts an in-depth conversation on probation, parole and commutations with State Sen. Heather Somers, Community Editorial Board member Marisol Garcia and victims advocate Audrey Carlson.
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Linda Greenhouse analyzes the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court term
Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Linda Greenhouse joins CT Mirror’s John Dankosky to discuss the end of another consequential U.S. Supreme Court term. Greenhouse, who has covered the Court for nearly three decades at The New York Times, offers her unique perspective on what the court’s recent…
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CT Mirror's 2023 Legislative Recap
CT Mirror Capitol Bureau Chief Mark Pazniokas sits down with Steady Habits host John Dankosky to review the Connecticut General Assembly’s 2023 legislative session and answer audience questions.
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A Conversation with Gov Ned Lamont
Gov. Ned Lamont sits down with CT Mirror Capitol Bureau Chief Mark Pazniokas to talk about the current budget process and his vision for his second term. Lamont won a convincing reelection last year as a defender of the fiscal guardrails that have capped spending and pushed the state to use its...
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Keith Phaneuf's Big Budget Review 2023
Break down Gov. Ned Lamont's proposed biennial budget with CT Mirror's budget guru Keith Phaneuf, and look ahead to how those priorities might inform the ongoing 2023 legislative session. Hosted by John Dankosky.
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Reporter Roundtable: The 2023 Legislative Session
As the 2023 Connecticut legislative session gets underway, John Dankosky sits down with a group of CT Mirror reporters to talk about potential bills to look out for this year. Guests on this episode: Jaden Edison, CT Mirror Justice Reporter Ginny Monk, CT Mirror Housing & Children’s Issues…
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Mark Pazniokas and the Politics of 2023
What can we expect from the upcoming Connecticut legislative session and Gov. Ned Lamont’s second term? CT Mirror Capitol Bureau Chief Mark Pazniokas joins host John Dankosky to break it down. This special event was recorded live at the University of Hartford's Wilde Auditorium. It's the first of…
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Growing CT's economy through science and technology
Business leaders, policy-makers and research organizations are exploring innovative economic development strategies rooted in Connecticut’s strength in science and technology. Hear an outstanding panel of thinkers debate how the state should move forward in the post-pandemic economy. Guests in…
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Hospital housekeepers say they're the essential workers who've been forgotten
There are 95,000 housekeepers working in hospitals across the country -- greater than the number of doctors. Housekeepers are among the health care workers who spend the most time with patients and their families, often talking to and forming relationships with people as they clean. Despite the...
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Fatal blazes highlight problems with fire inspection in Connecticut cities
Connecticut is home to tens of thousands of three-unit dwellings, many of which are three-story homes in cities. The state mandates they be inspected for fire safety each year, but chronic understaffing at fire marshals' offices means some of the oldest and potentially most dangerous houses are…
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Affordable housing misses out on stimulus spending in Connecticut
Despite rising rents, skyrocketing home prices and pleas from the Biden administration, Connecticut towns have budgeted just $15 million in federal ARPA funds for housing-related projects. That represents only around 1% of the $1.5 billion in federal stimulus funding they've received over the…
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What does Leora Levy's primary victory mean for the Connecticut GOP?
Connecticut's Republican primary voters heeded former President Donald Trump’s call to nominate Leora Levy to run for U.S. Senate, and rejected their party’s convention-endorsed candidate, former house minority leader Themis Klarides. In the aftermath of that vote, CT GOP Chairman Ben Proto’s...
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Cash Bail in Connecticut Part 2: What can we learn from New Jersey?
One of the states that has scrapped cash bail is New Jersey. The legislature, with the backing of then-Republican Gov. Chris Christie, passed a bill in 2014 that largely eliminated the state’s money bail system. The result: thousands fewer people are held in jail who otherwise might not have been...
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Cash Bail in Connecticut Part 1: A Growing Problem
According to a CT Mirror analysis, people who are accused but not yet convicted made up about a quarter of those behind bars in June 2013. In January 2022, they made up 42% of those locked up. Many are only awaiting trial in prison because they couldn't afford bail. Research suggests being jailed...
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GOP Senate primary heats up in Connecticut
A televised debate Tuesday night will provide the first and only opportunity for a broad audience to see Themis Klarides, the CT GOP’s socially moderate convention choice, engage two Trump loyalists, Leora Levy and Peter Lumaj. But Republicans say they see little evidence their voters are closely...
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Bus ridership is coming back in Connecticut
In April, when Connecticut's free fare program began, bus ridership was back to 70-75% of pre-COVID levels in Hartford, New Haven and Stamford. By the end of May, weekday ridership in the three cities reached nearly 90% of pre-COVID levels, with weekend numbers even higher, in part due to...
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Linda Greenhouse: The end of Roe and a momentous Supreme Court term
Join Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Linda Greenhouse in conversation with CT Mirror's John Dankosky as they review an historic and consequential U.S. Supreme Court term. Greenhouse, who covered the Court for nearly three decades at The New York Times, weighs in on the ramifications of the…
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What happens to health care prices when doctors' practices are bought up
As of January, hospitals owned 26% of physician practices nationwide, up from 14% a decade ago. An additional 27% of practices were owned by a corporation, such as a health insurer or a private equity firm, leaving fewer than half of physician practices under independent ownership. As the health...
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Cannabis and social equity: What can Massachusetts teach us?
In the fledgling cannabis industry, large companies have quickly risen to dominate the market in states where pot is now legal. But as regulators begin awarding licenses to select adult-use operators and businesses scramble to build out capacity, cannabis entrepreneurs, customers and communities...
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Where the fall of Roe v. Wade leaves safe harbor states like Connecticut
Connecticut lawmakers have agreed to provide a legal “safe harbor” to women from states with restrictive abortion laws who get abortions in Connecticut, as well as the clinicians who provide them. The law was passed earlier this year, before the Supreme Court voted to overturn the landmark Roe v....
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CT gubernatorial candidates spar over tax relief numbers
If state officials order tax cuts, campaign on them, then repeal them after Election Day but before taxpayers ever benefit, is that a tax hike? Is it merely annoying but not harmful? That's the debate underway in this year’s state elections. CT Mirror budget guru Keith Phaneuf joins host Ebong...
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Police use pandemic relief funds to install new surveillance equipment
Public records show that at least five municipalities in Connecticut have allocated millions of dollars provided through the American Rescue Plan Act to equip local police departments with a variety of surveillance technology, which has raised concerns about privacy and civil liberties in the…
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Connecticut's acute nursing shortage won't end anytime soon
During the pandemic, mid-career and older nurses have experienced burnout, left emergency departments and intensive care units for less stressful positions or retired early. Many younger nurses opted for lucrative traveling assignments. Nurses periodically fell ill with COVID and had to stay…
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Boy Scouts' property sale highlights loss of open space in Connecticut
In Killingworth, environmentalists and public officials are trying to stop the Boy Scouts of America from selling its wooded 252-acre Deer Lake Scout Reservation to a developer. The situation, including a lawsuit, is another example of the whack-a-mole approach conservationists are often forced…
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Steady Habits Presents: Untold
CT Mirror has a new podcast! If you're a fan of Steady Habits, we'd love for you to check out John's new project which he's co-hosting with Mercy Quaye, CT Mirror's Sightlines op ed columnist. So as a bonus for our Steady Habits subscribers, here's the first episode of Untold. Like what you hear?...
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Wrapping up the legislative session with Mark Pazniokas
CT Mirror Capitol Bureau Chief Mark Pazniokas joins host John Dankosky to recap a busy, election-year legislative session and preview what’s ahead between now and November.
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Baby formula shortage may hit communities of color harder in Connecticut
In Connecticut, 88% of white parents start off breastfeeding their newborns, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For Black parents, that number is 84%, and for Hispanic parents, it’s 85%. That means those communities face a disparate impact from the recent baby...
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Can Connecticut solve its food waste problem?
Getting food waste — more euphemistically, organics — out of the waste stream won’t solve the state’s waste disposal problems, but it’s widely recognized those problems won’t be solved without doing that. In reality, many communities and waste operations have been at this for years — some for...
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Jenna Carlesso on living with the new COVID normal
Is Connecticut really “coming out” of COVID? Is this a “post-pandemic” era? Last week, amid steadily climbing case rates, Connecticut’s seven-day rolling average topped 13% – a substantial upswing from the end of February, when the first omicron wave subsided and the state’s daily positivity rate...
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Katy Golvala on the effects of consolidation on rural hospital services
Across the country, hospital mergers are changing the ways in which people access health care. Most hospitals are no longer independent but instead part of larger health systems that own multiple facilities. When hospitals merge, they decrease costs by cutting duplicative services. Connecticut's...
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Erica Phillips on the high cost of healthcare for small businesses and nonprofits
Many small businesses and nonprofits in Connecticut must weigh the solvency of their business against how generous they’d like to be with employee health benefits. Health insurance premiums are going up largely because health care costs are rising. Over the past two decades, the cost of hospital...
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The Future of News
With Russia waging war in Ukraine, statewide political campaigns heating up, and Congressional mid-term elections soon to follow, there is a lot of news to consume. But who do we trust to tell it the way it is? And how is the news business faring in today's resource-starved journalism landscape?…
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Andrew Brown on the profit a group home operator may make on state-funded properties
For nearly four decades, Malcolm and Margaret Winkley have run a pair of nonprofits in Connecticut that serve individuals with developmental disabilities. And over the course of those 40 years, the husband and wife used their authority over the two organizations — and the taxpayer money they...
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CTrides Connecticut in Motion Series: Getting employees back to the workplace
In the first of a series sponsored by CTrides, we look at the impact of COVID-19 on businesses, their employees, and Connecticut's roadways and transit systems. Are Connecticut employees returning to the workplace in person? How can our transportation infrastructure accommodate and facilitate…
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Dave Altimari on a release of state emails in the Kosta Diamantis case
Konstantinos Diamantis, the former state official under federal investigation, showed a special interest in his daughter’s quest for state employment on a number of occasions in early 2020, according to documents released Friday. The documents, obtained by The Connecticut Mirror through a Freedom...
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Keith Phaneuf on the fight for equitable access to Connecticut's beaches
Activists trying to open Connecticut’s municipal beaches to non-residents have been caught for years in a game of rock-paper-scissors. Every time they employ a new strategy, the opposition counters. And while the latest effort — tied to a study of parking rates and local beach budgets — appears…
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Erica Phillips on the plight of Connecticut's child care industry
Connecticut’s labor force — the portion of the adult population employed or looking for work — contracted sharply at the beginning of the pandemic and has failed to recover to its pre-COVID scale. Economists have attributed much of the persistent workforce deficit to a child care shortage. The…
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Tom Condon on the resettlement of Afghan refugees in CT
In September, Gov. Ned Lamont announced that the White House would ask Connecticut to accept “as many as 310 Afghan refugees for resettlement in Connecticut.” The effort has gone better than expected. As of March 18, more than 700 Afghans had come to live in the state, more than double the…
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Budget guru Keith Phaneuf breaks down Connecticut's cash problem
Simply put, is state government too flush with cash? And after two years of a coronavirus pandemic that battered educational and health care systems, businesses and households, should the state be spending more to help? CT Mirror's fiscal expert Keith Phaneuf joins host Ebong Udoma to find out...
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Keith Phaneuf on the battle to frame Connecticut's state finances
After walking a budget tightrope with no safety net for most of the past two decades, Connecticut state government has socked away almost $4.8 billion since 2018 and could nearly double that by mid-2023. But while that’s three-and-half times what Connecticut saved in the prior 25 years combined,...
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Tom Condon on Fredric March and the Ku Klux Klan
Last fall Margaret Miner was skimming a New York Times article about how the University of Wisconsin had changed the names of two university theaters, in Madison and Oshkosh, because they had been named for an alumnus associated with the Ku Klux Klan. The name that had been removed from the...
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Dave Altimari on a CT Mirror investigation and the cancelation of state hazmat contracts
Two companies named in a federal grand jury subpoena investigating former state official Konstantinos Diamantis were the primary beneficiaries of millions of dollars’ worth of hazardous waste abatement work on state buildings since 2017, records show. An analysis by the CT Mirror shows that the...
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Jan Ellen Spiegel on changes that could be coming to state solar programs
For as long as Connecticut's subsidized solar programs have been in place, caps on the number of applicants have frustrated not only businesses and towns that want solar power, but also the state’s solar industry, environmental advocates and many lawmakers. As this legislative session gets...
About this show
Welcome to Steady Habits: A CT Mirror Podcast, hosted by John Dankosky. Our goal is to foster meaningful conversations with newsmakers and the journalists who cover them. We're planning to dig into Connecticut's biggest stories in policy and politics. Let's get started.
Hosted by
The Connecticut Mirror
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