Sunday Night Music Club XXI

Sad news yesterday, with the passing of Tommy Ardolino, longtime drummer for NRBQ. He was only 56, much too young for someone so full of life.

However, he did leave us a lot of great music. I'm currently searching for his soulful (and hilarious) rendition of "You & I & George", one of the occasions he came out from behind his drum set to sing a song. But in the meantime, you can listen to him crashing the cymbals on "Honey Hush", recorded live at Toad's Place in 1979.

(Audio only)

New Hampshire set to shape the rest of the race

After a somewhat surprising Iowa caucus, where Mitt Romney (above, campaigning in New Hampshire) literally squeaked by with a win over a strong showing from Rick Santorum, the New Hampshire primary will likely impact the rest of the battle for the GOP nomination. I did predict Romney to win in Iowa, but I stated that he would walk away with it.

Seven votes doth not a walk make. It turns out if a minivan full of Santorum voters made it to the caucus that night, Romney would have placed second.

The results are statistically tied, with both candidate expected to receive 7 delegates each out of the 25 that Iowa has once the results are verified. But it's the psychological boost that has helped Santorum emerge as a potential front-runner should he show well in New Hampshire.

Already his fundraising has drastically kicked up a notch, with (his campaign) reporting over $1 million donated in the immediate days following the caucus. Depending of how the vote turns out in New Hampshire, this may be either a brief speed bump in Romney's drive toward the nomination or it can be a sign that the Republican party is indeed too conservative for a relative moderate like Romney.

Keep in mind that although Romney is the former governor of Massachusetts, which boarders New Hampshire, it was four years ago when John McCain beat Romney by a margin of 37% to 31%. And that was well before all the hysterical caterwauling from the conservatives about "Romneycare".

OK, time for my prediction. My best guess is that Romney will win in New Hampshire but by a disappointingly small margin over a strong second-place performance by Santorum; Newt Gingrich will place 4th to a decent 3rd place showing by Ron Paul, and anyone left isn't even relevant.

Should this occur, the lead up to the two big contests in red states South Carolina (Jan. 21st) and Florida (Jan. 31st) will be very interesting.

Obama Wins in Iowa!

In a dramatic result from Iowa, President Obama swept the Democratic caucus with 100% of the vote! Obama is most likely thrilled with the results, and will continue to lead the nation as the New Hampshire primary approaches.

In other news, we're still waiting to see how the Republican contest goes.

(h/t to @ttagaris)

Silly Season begins today!

For veteran politics junkies such as myself, the beginning of the 2012 primary season is a true winter blessing! Because I know that even though the NY Giants season will have to end eventually, we'll still have the Republican battle for the nomination to keep us entertained until long after my boat goes back in the water.

(But damn, wasn't that a great finish by the Giants, knocking the Cowboys out of the playoffs and earning a home playoff game next Sunday? Go G'ints!)

Anyways, today is the Iowa Caucus. I've long predicted that Mitt Romney will win it walking away, but the battle for second and third could be interesting. Santorum, Gingrich and perpetual wallflower Ron Paul will fight it out to stay alive in the race. Anyone who doesn't score at least a strong third-place finish will likely drop out soon after.

Because it's next to impossible to keep your staff fired up and your army of volunteers knocking on doors when you've finished (as Joe Lieberman put it so perfectly in New Hampshire in 2004) "...in a three-way tie for third place!"

So tonight I'll be enjoying the televised spectacle and commenting both here and on Twitter @ConnecticutBob.

And of course, you can keep up to date on all the primaries and caucuses on my 2012 Primary Calendar. Next up on Tuesday Jan. 10th is the New Hampshire Primary! I'll probably post some recollections from 2008 when I was up in Manchester for the event.

TITBTIESOTI(T)

This Is The Best Thing I've EVER Seen On The Internet (Today)!

Every day I usually find something interesting or noteworthy on the internet, so I decided to post one today.

Here's 25 seconds of fairly cool, followed by 5 seconds of sheer awesome!

Air Santa

Yes, it's my video from a million years ago of me putting on a red suit and jumping out of a perfectly good plane for a bunch of kids.

Merry Christmas and all that.

I'm working for FedEx for one more week before I start a new job. Doing the delivery thing for the holiday season was fun and challenging; and for the first time during a December I've actually LOST weight!

But I'm looking forward to starting training for a good field service job early next month. I can always exercise and diet to lose weight rather than work 70 hours a week jumping on and off a van and heaving packages about all willy-nilly! (I don't really do that)

Enjoy!

"Dear Leader" croaks

The guy didn't look all that healthy to me anyway, so this is no big surprise.

Kim Jong Il died suddenly of a reported heart attack yesterday. His son, Kim Jong Un is the likely successor. Because, in brutal dictatorships, it's often the son of the leader who takes control of the nation upon his leaving office. For example, see Papa Doc/Baby Doc Duvalier, Augustus and Tiberius Caesar, and G.H.W and G.W Bush.

That's a joke.

On several levels.

Anyway, the thing I'll remember the most about Kim Jong Il is that he was so very very lonely.



(Don't be surprised if Youtube pulls this video quickly for copyright infringement)

UPDATE: Best Tweet of the day from @PatFrmMoonachie :

Kim Jong's dead??..I didn't even know he was Il.

Lowes caves to anti-freedom-of-religion wackos

I was wondering about that word. "wackos". I tend to want to spell it "whackos", but I've seen it written the former way a lot, so I'll yield to conventional wisdom in this case. Although personally, I still prefer "whackos". Oh well...

Now that we got that out of the way, here's a video of Chris Murphy (CT-05), speaking to Congress about the cowardly decision by Lowes to pull all their advertising from a new reality show/documentary about Muslim families in America.

Congressman Murphy reminds us that the Constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion is sacred to our nation, and the vocal hysterics of a tiny minority shouldn't affect that. Lowes displayed a lack of courage in their decision to pull the ads. I hope enough Americans agree with that and give their business to Home Depot, or better yet, their independent hometown hardware store. I still mourn the loss of Harrison's Hardware in downtown Milford several years ago...there was something comforting about walking down the aisles and hearing the old wooden floorboards creaking. You don't get that experience in the giant big-box stores.

Justice is served...now what?

Okay, so Joshua Komisarjevsky (yes, I had to copy and paste his name...nobody but his family and his lawyers can possible spell it without looking) has been sentenced to death, same as his home invasion partner Steven Hayes.

Now what?

Let's put aside the moral implications of the death penalty for now, as many of you already know my position. What about the practical issues?

The way the death penalty statute stands in Connecticut, it's pretty much assured that should Komisarjevsky and Hayes decide to fight against their sentence, they'll likely die of natural causes (like old age) behind bars before they'll ever have to walk to the death chamber. That's because there are multiple procedures and safeguards built into the law that gives the accused a reasonable chance to appeal his conviction and sentence.

There are obviously cases where an innocent person has been put to death. "You can't get pardoned from the grave," as Juan Melendez-Colon stated at a recent talk in Connecticut. Melendez-Colon spent over 17 years on Florida's death row and was pretty much out of appeals before finally being released upon discovery of his innocence.

It is demonstrably impractical for the state to kill an innocent man. Yet just this week I was astounded when I heard an interview with John Walsh, the host of the TV show "America's Most Wanted" (and the father of a murdered child) admit that while there have been innocent men who have been executed he is still in favor of the death penalty. This is obviously the price of his own humanity that he is willing to sacrifice in the pursuit of vengeance.

But the practical issue here is that the state has to burden itself with the costs of both the prosecution and the defense of every single appeal, along with the increased costs of security for the defendant. These costs far exceed the expense of housing a convict for life in a maximum security prison. And as taxpayers, we're ALL footing the bill for this "justice".

That is exactly what will happen anyway should Komisarjevsky and Hayes refuse to accept their sentence. If they should decide to drop their appeals, they will eventually be put to death, just as serial killer Micheal Ross was in 2005 after dropping his appeals in favor of death.

And that still took a decade of expensive legal wrangling to accomplish.

For what was basically a state-assisted suicide.

The fact of the matter is that sooner or later the death penalty will be abolished in Connecticut. The state legislature put a repeal bill on Gov. Jodi Rell's desk a while back, but she refused to sign it. Governor Malloy will almost certainly approve a death penalty repeal should it cross his desk...I say "almost" because I've learned through painful experience that what a candidate promises is too often the exact opposite of what an office-holder does.

So obviously it's time to rewrite our law to make it "life without any fucking possibility of parole" (and I'm going to push for that exact wording in the law) for anyone convicted of a capital crime.

That way the state saves tax dollars, and the families of both the victims and the defendants (often the overlooked victims of the crime) are spared countless appeals and court appearances.

Playing politics with women's health

Fresh off the surprising and disappointing decision by Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius to reject the Food and Drug Administration's conclusion that the Plan B One-Step pill was safe enough to be placed on pharmacy shelves without an age limit, President Obama chimed in with his own opinion.

“The reason Kathleen made this decision is that she could not be confident that a 10-year-old or an 11-year-old going to a drugstore should be able — alongside bubble gum or batteries — be able to buy a medication that potentially, if not used properly, could have an adverse effect,” Mr. Obama said to reporters at the White House.

I truly despise the implication of remarks such as these that we're all complete fucking idiots. I know it's an election year and the Republicans are going to bring every possible issue to bear, but for fuck's sake, this is a serious stuff!

The "Plan B" (or "Morning After pill") is quite literally equally or less dangerous than many hundreds (or thousands) of unrestricted OTC medications that can be legally purchased by anyone of any age who can successfully complete a transaction of money for medications. To have the president casually say that he wants to protect children from potentially ingesting a single medication for potential thrills(?) or from simple stupidity, while deliberately ignoring all the rest of the OTC drugs is ridiculous and beyond acceptable!

I've become used to this sort of obvious bullshit from eight years of George Bush and twenty-plus years of Joe Lieberman, but to hear it a guy whom I hoped was far above that level of political hypocrisy makes me literally want to vomit. Is it a recent prerequisite to totally sell out once you attain the Oval Office?

It bugs the hell out of me that Sebelius and Obama, two candidates who strongly supported women's health issues when campaigning, have made this disastrous judgment that will directly impact the lives and families of many women, and will also have far-reaching implications in the ongoing struggle to protect a woman's right to choose.

Jesus! To paraphrase Hunter S. Thompson, how fucking low do you have to stoop to be President?