KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN: I just returned from Baghdad, and what was interesting to me, I sat down with dozens of Iraqi soldiers and dozens of students at Baghdad University, and Senator, they said to me, "We don't want to see a Republican president." Matter of fact, out of every single one that I talked to, one person said they supported John McCain.
They said, "We're living a Republican war. Look at this. It's a disaster! We want to see a Democrat for president." What does John McCain say to the future of Iraq, when we're talking about Iraqi soldiers and Baghdad University students? They're the ones living this.
JOE LIEBERMAN: Well, I'm real surprised to hear that, um, because...
PHILLIPS: I was too!
[Crosstalk]
PHILLIPS: It was very interesting. They were very blunt, and very straightforward.
LIEBERMAN: Yeah, I mean, not that I expect the Iraqis to vote in our election, but I will tell you that in all the visits I've made there -- and it's eight -- the Iraqi people on the street, the Iraqi military, the Iraqi government that I've talked to, don't want us to just pick up and leave, which is what Sen. Obama, Sen. Clinton have been advocating.
Well, as I say all the time, at least my conscious is clear because I voted for this guy in '06.
Yesterday afternoon, in accepting his nomination for a potential 12th term representing the Fourth Congressional District of Connecticut, Chris Shays sounded a favorite attack theme of his against the Democratic party:
Shays had harsher words for Democrats. Liberal activists, he said are even more divisive.
"Though Democrats speak urgently of the challenges we face, their leaders obstruct and delay," he said.
It was already shaping up to be a difficult year for congressional Republicans. Now, on the cusp of Mother's Day, comes this: A majority of the House GOP has voted against motherhood....
It has long been the custom to compare a popular piece of legislation to motherhood and apple pie. Evidently, that is no longer the standard. Worse, Republicans are now confronted with a John Kerry-esque predicament: They actually voted for motherhood before they voted against it.
Republicans, unhappy with the Democratic majority, have been using such procedural tactics as this all week to bring the House to a standstill, but the assault on mothers may have gone too far.
(Yes, that was the Washington Post, not the Onion.)
So in celebration of moms everywhere, please consider throwing some Mother's Day turkee Jim's way before the fundraising deadline at midnight on Monday the 12th.
CTNewsJunkie's Christine Stuart was the only reporter on the media platform at today's State Democratic Party Convention. All by her lonesome, without the usual gaggle of cameras on tripods, she seems to be the only reporter in Connecticut who even cares about State Politics. Her article/online post, entitled Democratic State Convention Mostly Uneventful, is already up (because she is fast as lightning).
She gives you a peek into the real discussions behind the scenes, since the podium was dull as dirt except when Dan Malloy spoke.
If Christine Stuart had not been there, you might not know there even was some sort of political process going on in Connecticut.
My personal, non-journalistic, under the bleachers view of the day's work continues in the "more" ...below the crease...
At least now we know Lieberman's official function in the McCain campaign: Joe Lieberman, McCain Bearings Checker. NBC's Jonathan Capehart loses it while answering Andrea Mitchell's question.
The Connecticut Health Care Partnership bill, which allows municipalities, nonprofits, and small business to join the state employee health insurance pool, is awaiting the Gov. M. Jodi Rell's signature. Wednesday evening Rell expressed reservations about signing the bill, because insurers are balking at the idea and have said they may rebid the current rate if the pool is opened, possibly leaving a $54 million hole in the current year's budget.
There are, roughly speaking, 50,000 people who work for the State of Connecticut. and 100,000 people who work for the town governments. (Stats here.)
One of two things could be the case:
Of course they'd re-bid – when the size of the healthcare pool increases (i.e. there are more customers at stake for those companies with "winning bids"), the state can negotiate lower prices. That's the whole point – though it'll be fall before the plan is enacted, and there'd be no real need to re-bid until towns start signing up (probably next year.)
Scenario 1 means that Rell and Genuario are pouring on the bullshit to justify a veto (and, uh, keep government healthcare costs artificially high). If this were the case, I'd be asking where the pushback from Donovan & co is – but the other possibility is that...
The Governor suspects that health insurance companies are planning to screw the state for making a move to get insurance at the best price, and doesn't want to know whether or not we're being ripped off by some of our largest vendors.
[Think of it this way: I get health insurance for $6000 a year, and you get health insurance for $6000 a year. If we said "let's buy insurance together," we should expect to pay either $12000 or – for companies that like scooping up business to distributing their risk over a larger number of customers to earn a profit [i.e. "insurance companies"] – something a little less than $12000. If an insurance company sent us a bill for $13000, they'd be ripping us off.]
For all the talk of how "pooling" is a "move towards universal healthcare," I think it's important to point out that it actually isn't any such thing.
It is the last, best case for using the free market to get people health insurance – an assertion that we, too, have the power and the ability and the right to benefit from the free market as well. It's only a move towards universal healthcare if it's proven that every single health insurance company will ruthlessly exploit its customers, even when supply and demand remain constant and their overhead (paperwork, accounting, sales) actually decreases.
Now, many of us here believe that it's extremely likely that insurance companies would be proven to be exploitative if the question is put to the test. But hey, let's put it to the test, give the companies a chance to step up, and give both state and local governments a chance to get a better deal on what they're already buying by getting it in bulk.
And if they screw us – well, let's just say that the free market doesn't prevent grocery store-shoppers from becoming farmers – if companies have our worst interests at heart, we do it ourselves.
What's going on here is that Donovan is calling these companies' bluff, and Rell is trying to keep us from knowing whether or not we're being screwed. Or, in the words of a mighty philosopher:
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.
There's a whole lot of unknown-unknowns happening in the Governor's office, and if the Bush years have taught us anything, it's that at the end of the day, there's really no difference between willful ignorance and straight-up malice.
It's convention season! – the State Convention is Saturday in New Britain, with Congressional Conventions on Monday, and state legislative conventions on the 19th and 20th.
So far, there appear to be convention votes scheduled in Senate District 30 (Matthew Brennan and Michael Renzullo have filed to compete for Andrew Roraback's seat -- who hasn't filed for re-election himself, yet), Adam Gutcheon filed against Rep Peggy Sayers in the 60th AD, Lydia Martinez has filed against Andres Ayala in the 128th, and Auden Grogins against Bob Keeley in the 129th.
Two special mentions go to the race in the 94th AD -- Gary Winfield (who is a blogosphere contributor, circulating editorials and videos at the New Haven independent and elsewhere) will be up against Charles Blango [and presumably Bill Dyson]-- and the 22nd SD, where Marilyn Moore (who has done local organizing for CT Opposes the War on top of working on Ed Gomes' staff) competing with Trumbull local official Anthony Musto for a shot against Rob Russo.
Oh, and there are Republican conventions, but I don't have the energy to write about them today.
Rep. John Ryan. Republican from Darien, retires. Also, read to the bottom to learn the real reason for GOP recruitment failures.
Various hard-right groups will assemble on June 7th to protest Griswold v. Connecticut – in other words, declare their opposition to the availability of birth control. Any takers for a counter-action?
I actually agree with the take a lot of bloggers writing about this have, namely, that it's at least a step towards honesty for the conservative movement. They've been against the availability of birth-control and divorces for ages, and if they take their messages to the street we can have an honest debate about it.
Every legislative session, the list of worthy bills that dies on the vine is much longer than the list of accomplishments, so I don't relish doing the obligatory "session wrap-up" post. At a certain point, after the basic housekeeping work, it appears that they're merely negotiating over the content of the fall's campaigns. Conservatives don't want to let progressives win bragging rights on paid sick days, Democrats don't want to let Republicans climb up on the cross over their absurd last-minute budget proposal, and Rell holds out a veto threat on the one really significant bill that passed – healthcare pooling – which, thanks to untimely retirements, she'll probably be able to make stick.
Sigh.
In any case, there are two ways that I can think of to correct this unfortunate situation:
Allow bills that have passed out of committee – all of which have been through the process of public hearings, legislative research, and open debate – to survive into the next session, regardless of whether or not it came up for a vote by midnight on May 7th.
Failing that, Speaker Donovan can indicate his willingness to change the traditional working day: as it stands, for the first half of the session, the House and Senate generally only convene one day a week. Then, in the final week, there are all-night rump sessions where Republicans laughingly kill bill after bill, knowing they have the Speaker by the balls with the clock ticking. This entirely predictable situation happens every goddamn time, and it's pathetic.
Instead, Speaker Donovan and Senator Williams can say – in February or March – "on Tuesday, we will have a vote on 'Paid Sick Days,' and we will stay as long as necessary." Let the Republicans go until 9pm, to midnight, to 3am. Don't adjourn until there's a vote. Even if every single Republican stayed (which doesn't seem likely from the poor GOP attendance at committee meetings that I've seen), 60% of the House Democratic caucus could be at home under the sheets at any given time, and we could still spank them when the eventual vote comes down.
Plus, this would have the additional benefit of dramatically curbing the number of times the GOP "goes to the mat" to try to demolish Democratic bills – if you're going to stay on the floor for 36 hours just to lose in the end anyway, you're not going to do it for every little thing like the Republicans do now.
Either way, this end-of-session slaughter has to stop. After all, we don't send Democratic supermajorities to Hartford to let Republicans steer the ship – it's time for our Charlie Brown legislature to stop getting the football pulled out from under them at the last second.
(Last day of the session -- call your State Reps! - promoted by mattw)
(cross post http://www.ctvoterscount.org/?... UPDATE: Session Summary - One SOTS did not get what she wanted, 340 Registrars of Voters did not get get what they wanted, and the 100s of Thousands Connecticut of Voters did not get Voting Integrity. VOTE PRIVATELY, COUNT PUBLICLY
Bysiewicz Urges Passage of S.B. 444 - We Urge Amendment #6141
Many of the changes necessary to start Connecticut on the road to stronger, effective audits that were in H.B. 5888 have now been offered as an amendment #6141 by Reps Caruso and Urban to S.B.444:
An Independent Audit Board
A Stronger Chain-of-Custody for Memory Cards, Optical Scanners and Ballots
100% Independent Pre-Election Testing of Memory Cards
We urge the passage of the amendment with S.B. 444.
While the Secretary of the State has supported the Independent Audit Board and her Office has supported the other provisions of H.B. 5888, she wrote a letter to Rep Caruso yesterday asking for passage of S.B. 444, which primarily concerns "Voter Privacy". While we support "Voter Privacy" we also see it as superficial without "Vote Integrity". See the Stamford Advocate, Secretary of the State says voter privacy at stake<read>
In a letter to Rep. Caruso Sec. Bysiewicz wrote, "We are preparing for a record turnout in November and it is critical that we provide local election officials with concrete guidance about how best to safeguard voter privacy. Voters in our state have a right to expect that we will protect their most fundamental civil right and this bill provides a good framework to do just that."
NOW ITS UP TO YOU - WE CANNOT WAIT FOR VOTING INTEGRITY !!!
If not you can use this page to find your House and Senates Districts on a map and then click the map to get contract information: http://www.cga.ct.gov/maps/Townlist.asp
And I don't mean Obama's decisive win in North Carolina and Hillary's hanging on by her fingernails in Indiana - although that should translate into great news as well.
It's how well the Democrats are positioned for 2008 and the future.
Vote for Change Kickoff: Hartford Voter Registration Drive (Official Event))
With this election, we have the chance to ensure that more voters than ever take an active stake in our country's future. On May 10, Obama for America will launch Vote for Change, a national voter registration and mobilization drive with kickoffs in all 50 states. This event is the kickoff for our area. After a brief training, we'll hit the streets to register voters. Please join us!
Time: Saturday, May 10 at 2:00 PM
Duration: 1 hour
Host: Jeff Coleman
Location:
Pope Park Recreation Center (Hartford, CT)
Park Terrace at Pope Park Dr.
Hartford, CT 06106
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