Jim Himes: Afghanistan town hall meeting

Jim Himes (CT-04) meets with constituents in Trumbull to discuss America's involvement in Afghanistan. The hour-long video is unedited, except for missing the last five or six minutes because my tape ran out. It was an orderly meeting for the most part, and lacking the theatrics of previous town hall meetings (somewhat to this video-blogger's dismay...)

Congressman gives back pay raise

During a town hall meeting about Afghanistan yesterday Rep. Jim Himes (CT-4) answered a question about how Congress can save money by not accepting their pay raise. Here's what he said:



I'll have about an hour of video from the town hall meeting posted tomorrow morning.

Sam Caligiuri breaks own proposed law

Daniela Altimari over on the Courant's Capitol Watch pointed out that State Sen. Sam Caligiuri (R-16), who announced his challenge to Rep. Chris Murphy's 5th Congressional District seat, seems to be a bit of a hypocrite for breaking the law that he sponsored restricting the use of robotic telephone calls by campaigns.

True, it never actually became a law (it died in committee) but it does look a bit weird when somebody rails against a practice, and then turns around and utilizes it for his own purposes. I'm just sayin'.

Listen to the Courant's audio of the robo-call.

UPDATE: One positive thing about this situation is I now know how to pronounce his name. On the audio, he calls himself "cal-eh-jury", not "cal-eh-Gury". Thank you Mr. Robo-call!

Right out of the gate

Attorney General Dick Blumenthal has hit the ground running in his bid to become Connecticut's next senator. The sudden news that Sen. Chris Dodd has decided to retire after a distinguished and illustrious career in the Senate has thrown the Republican field into an uproar.

The staff at CT News Junkie reports on a quick endorsement:

Less than 30 hours after Attorney General Richard Blumenthal’s U.S. Senate announcement Windsor’s Democratic Town Committee unanimously voted to endorse his candidacy.

[..]

“We all know Dick Blumenthal’s record and it’s a great one,“ Leo Canty, Windsor’s Democratic Town Committee Chairman, said. “There was little discussion and a lot of enthusiasm for his candidacy as a US Senator so it didn’t take much to end up with a unanimous vote of the group, and we are delighted about the decision.”

The mysterious Scarce over at My Left Nutmeg discusses early polling, and boy-oh-boy, it sure don't look good for the Republicans:

When a Republican-leaning pollster like Scott Rasmussen can't find any good numbers to report you know that Rob Simmons and Linda McMahon have their work cut out.

Saramerica has similar bad news for the GOP over at CT Local Politics:

Hot off the press – a new Rasmussen poll taken last night also shows Richard Blumenthal leading all potential GOP challengers by at least 20 points. And this is right-leaning Rasmussen we’re talking here.

Finally, Rob Simmons is suffering his second metaphorical earthquake in the last several months, as written in the New London Day:

Twice in the past four months, the ground has shifted abruptly under the Stonington Republican who would be Connecticut's new junior senator, once with the entry of Linda McMahon into the party's primary race and again Wednesday, as the wounded Sen. Chris Dodd bowed out in favor of the popular Democratic Attorney General Richard Blumenthal.

For a guy whose campaign had just traded a buzzing, neon-lit target for a narrow, elusive one, Simmons sounded upbeat on Thursday.

"We worked up a Plan B and the Plan B was based on the fact that whoever is being chosen by the Democrat Party to run is going to have to confront a whole series of issues that have been contentious over the course of the last year," Simmons said. "In other words, you can change the face, but you don't necessarily change the race."

Simmons isn't alone in that optimism.

In an appearance Thursday on the "Today" show, McMahon, the former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, brushed aside questions about whether Blumenthal's entry into the race was bad news for her candidacy.

McMahon acknowledged that it would be "a tough race" given Blumenthal's popularity, but remained blasé about Dodd's sudden decision to withdraw. "It was not a big surprise," she said.

Both Simmons and McMahon's responses betray a hollow sort of optimism, what with their odds of winning plummeting spectacularly overnight. While nobody walks away with a Senate seat unless they're unopposed, the Attorney General is certainly in about as good a position as any Democrat can dream of going into the 2010 election.

It will be interesting to see how the Republican response to the entry of Dick Blumenthal into the race will play out, especially keeping in mind that there's still likely to be a bruising struggle for the GOP nomination.

Being a degenerate politics junkie, I'm eagerly looking forward to the spectacle.

Teabaggers target Mt. Washington Observatory

The image below is from yesterday's front page of dumpchrisdodd.com, one of a handful of local websites that popped up this year as a result of the GOP's hysterically incessant corporate-sponsored "grassroots" campaigning.

Now that Sen. Chris Dodd has announced his retirement after a career of outstanding public service, thereby taking all the wind out of the "dumper's" sails, it'll be interesting to see what happens to those rabid extremists who believe the cause of all their problems has been solely because of our senior senator.

My guess is that they'll completely lose focus and splinter off, eventually attacking each other as individuals pledge support for whichever of the multiple dubious candidates in the scrum to be named GOP nominee for Senate.

It appears that the dumpers have already lost all direction, and for their next target have decided to attack a weather and scientific research center high up in the mountains of New Hampshire.

At least, that's what it looks like based on their website...

If karma works the way it should, the dumpers will have just gone deeply into debt by ordering a metric shitload of non-refundable "Dump Dodd" signs and bumper stickers.

Ahhhhh, now that would be fun!

Volunteer Feb 3 PLEASE!

The National Association of Free Clinics is bringing a free clinic to the Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford on Wednesday Feb 3 from noon to 7pm. Volunteers are needed -- licensed health professionals, people who can help set up the evening before, those who can assist with registration, escorting patients and just about anything else you can think of. Sign up here.

Keith Olbermann has been diligently working on setting up these free clinics with NAFC and raising money in states in which senators have fought health reform. I have been hoping we would have one here to show Joe LIEberman that there are people who need this help right here in the Nutmeg state.

I've signed up for the day -- please join us for what is certain to be an amazing day helping your fellow Connecticut citizens. I guarantee you will be touched, inspired and angry by what you see on this day.

Dodd out!

Go read the news elsewhere, I gotta get ready for work!

UPDATE: The Senator and me. Photo from the inauguration, Jan. 2009, Washington DC. I lost a few pounds since this photo was taken.

And yes, I was actually wearing a hat indoors! I didn't have any choice; there was no coatroom in the caucus room of the Russell Senate Office Building, so the coats were just stacked on top of one another. If I set it down, it would have gotten crushed. And it's my favorite hat!

Clearing the air on MGAT

Originally I wasn't going to blog about this, but because of an article in the paper that contained significant misapprehensions, I feel I had to set the record straight. These words and opinions are mine only.

My appointment to the Milford Government Access Television committee (MGAT) expired on December 31st. The city asked if I would like to serve another two year term, and I let them know I would. We've done a lot of terrific work last year, and I expected to continue to help upgrade and modernize the system to bring government television to the citizens of Milford.

I was informed that my services were no longer needed by the City and the Board of Aldermen had appointed someone else for my position on the committee.

Actually, I wasn't informed at all, and only learned of my replacement when I saw the agenda for last night's meeting posted on the City of Milford's website several days ago. I volunteered to tape last night's meeting, along with tonight's P&Z meeting.

This past year we, as a committee, found it necessary to discontinue working with the Line Producer who had been tasked with putting on the broadcasts. I won't go into the reasons why right now, but it was a unanimous vote by the committee, reached after many months of discussion and careful consideration. All the MGAT meetings are open to the public, and anyone interested could have heard our reasons for the decision.

The idea that politics may have been a reason to do that is simply untrue, but an article by Frank Juliano in the CT Post may have helped convey that falsehood. Although I was correctly quoted in the article, there were many other instances that were absolutely untrue. I'd like to set the record straight on some of this:

The Board of Aldermen is expected Monday night to replace Bob Adams, a Democrat, with Republican Michael Cavallaro on the Milford Government Access Television panel. The reconstituted MGAT is then expected to rehire Dennis Guaglianone, the cameraman and producer who has been videotaping community events since before the commission was formed.

There is no likelihood of the committee "rehiring" the former producer, regardless of the "reconstituted" nature of the committee. As I said before, the vote was unanimous to decide to no longer use his services. He wasn't "fired", because he'd never been "hired" by the City; he was simply a contractor who was authorized to do work for the committee. The committee has sole authority whom to utilize for this work, and we decided there was cause to make a change.

Guaglianone was reportedly fired for not covering some governmental programs, including the mayoral candidate debates last fall, in favor of parades and other community events.

This is 100% untrue. The producer was never tasked with covering the mayoral debates because last year's budget ONLY included enough to broadcast the Board of Aldermen, Board of Education, and Planning & Zoning meetings.

After the first debate wasn't aired, so many people complained to us about it that I voluntarily taped and broadcast the remaining two mayoral debates, along with the City Clerk debate. I also voluntarily set up a website where people with internet access could stream the video of those debates directly to their computers. I also update the website periodically with the MGAT broadcast schedule. All at zero cost to the City.

The parades and community events were the producer's own projects that we allowed to be broadcast on MGAT 79, as long as there was room in the rotation. Nobody gets "fired" because of parades. Whoever told that to Mr. Juliano was speaking based only on their own assumptions.

But Mayor James L. Richetelli Jr. and the GOP majority on the Board of Aldermen said they believe that politics, not work performance, was behind Guaglianone's firing.

I'm sorry the mayor feels that way, especially after the months of repeated discussions MGAT chairman Mike Manente had with him regarding the reasons for no longer wishing to work with the producer. It seems like Mr. Richetelli conveniently forgot that he had been aware of the impending action and was given plenty of reasons for it.

The MGAT did not consult the aldermen before firing its employee, said Chairman Greg Smith, R-2, nor did it have to.

"From what I can see that board is not operating in a partisan way, and they have done a tremendous job is upgrading our local access cable," he said.

This is all true. To Mr. Smith's credit, he did take a moment before the meeting to shake my hand and thank me for the work I've done with the committee, even after I questioned him about the reasoning behind the board's decision not to reappoint me. And it is also true that MGAT didn't confer with the board before making our decision, but as Smith said, the committee didn't have to. As I mentioned, our chairman had been in close contact with the mayor in the months leading up to our decision.

What bothers me most about this is that it seems the ruling to not reappoint me was retaliation at the MGAT committee for our decision. Being a sort of well-known political blogger, I'm a natural target. They say the squeaky wheel gets the grease; but occasionally it also gets replaced!

Believe me, if there was any other way to deal with the personnel situation, we would have be willing to do so. Without going into details, the situation between the committee and the producer simply became untenable and something needed to be done. The committee was completely within it's authority to do so. We had a issue with personnel and we did what had to be done.

Any inference that our decision was based on "politics" is simply complete and utter bullshit. If there was one thing you could say about the committee, it's that it was absolutely apolitical in nature. We care ONLY about getting the broadcasts out to the citizens of Milford.

Finally, it has been a rare privilege and an honor for me to work with the members of the MGAT committee. They are some of the most dedicated public volunteers I have ever seen, and I'm absolutely sure they will continue to do great things for government television in Milford.

(The opinions contained herein are mine and mine alone. Please feel free to ask the members of the MGAT Committee their own opinions on this matter. I speak only for myself. I felt that I needed to clear the air on this matter.)

Happy MMX

I forgot to post this on New Year's Day. Remember the old Pentium MMX processor? I used an MMX-based PC for years, running Win95 with 64MB of memory and an 800MB hard disk. That might not seem like much these days, but it blew away the older x86-based non-Pentium PCs. It worked just fine with my US Robotics 56K modem!

I just think it's neat that an old Intel processor works perfectly to usher in the new year, what with the roman numerals MMX equaling 2010. I doubt that it was intentional; Microsoft didn't even anticipate Y2K, so I don't think they had the foresight to name an old processor for the 2nd decade of this century.

Next year is "7db" in hex, or "11111011011" in binary. Hopefully I'll come up with something suitable by then.

How we can keep Connecticut blue

Well, now that it's 2010 the Democrats in Connecticut will have their hands full keeping our Congressional delegation "blue". The anti-Obama hate machine has been working full time to poison the political atmosphere ever since the Presidential inauguration. Conservative media-sponsored "tea parties" have tapped into the deepest fears and latent racism inherent in some from the radical right wing.

These smear factors, aimed at low-information voters who don't have the time or inclination to examine the issues closely, are having a definite negative effect on elections. Last November, many outstanding local Democratic legislators were swept out of office due in part to this non-stop hateful rhetoric being spewed by conservative media. People are worried, and the conservatives are capitalizing on those fears, without offering any workable solutions.

The best way to counter this corporate-sponsored assault on the Democrats is to start at the local level, by participating in your local Democratic Town Committee. Every town in Connecticut has a DTC which is comprised of citizens who are registered Democrats and who put their name in to be elected onto the committee. Most towns have vacancies on the set number of DTC member slots, so contact your local DTC Chairman to join.

But you have to act NOW, because January is the month when most towns elect their members. You can click on this link at Democratic State Central and click on the drop down menu to select your town. Below the list of state legislators are the names and phone numbers of your town chair and the members of your DTC. Find out if they need any members, and if they do, the vote to elect you is basically a formality.

(Local DTC members at a meeting in Milford's 3rd District)
The great thing about belonging to your DTC is not only finding ways to help the party elect the best people to represent your town and state, but also it's a great way to meet and get to know your neighbors in town. Since joining my DTC two years ago, I've met dozens of terrific people that I now consider friends.

A democracy only works when the citizens get involved. This is an opportunity for you to make a difference in your town, your state, and your country. Isn't that worth a little bit of your time?