Ken Dixon's Blog-O-Rama

Friday August 29, 2008

Gov. Jodi Rell just met Capitol reporters for a few minutes in her office, to react to the selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate and talk a little about the GOP National Convention.
But she took an inadvertent slap at Barack Obama,
“We’re in the 2st century,” she said of Palin. “Being a woman shouldn’t make any difference.She was also a mayor of a city and certainly is governor and I would guess if you looked at the experience of Sen. Barama, he was a state senator and a one-term US senator and he’s spent half of that term campaigning for president and I don’t know if his experience is certainly greater.”
The Blogster guesses that mistaking Obama for a weather-prediction advice isn’t quite as bad as calling him “Osama.”

Friday August 29, 2008

And Sen. John McCain’s camp just let fly that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will be his vice presidential candidate. Yikes.
He couldn’t have picked a less-likely running mate. How many electoral votes does Alaska have? Three.
It makes Connecticut’s seven electoral votes look huge. Even though her experience is a fraction of what Connecticut Gov. Jodi Rell has had, Palin’s conservative enough to satisfy red-meat Republican types.
It leaves Joe Lieberman, who still have some socially liberal cred, free to become a cabinet member if McCain is the next president.And if that happens, Rell can appoint herself, or U.S. Attorney Kevin O’Connor, or state Senate Minority Leader John McKinney, R-Fairfield, to serve in the U.S. Senate until the 2010 elections.

Thursday August 28, 2008

Was the Blogster the only one who noticed that during Joe Biden’s big speech in Denver last night that at one point he talked about Bush “tax increases” when he meant cuts?
I guess it’s hard enough following Bill Clinton – let alone the thousands of people who are comparing Biden’s remarks to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s tour-de-force from the night before – so a perfectly read Teleprompter speech was probably impossible.
Anyway, to leaven the last day of the 2008 Democratic National Convention, what follows is a news release from the Ralph Nader (Connecticut’s own) presidential campaign that savvy students of politics may or may not agree with.But most of the issues raised by Nader can’t be denied and is enough to make you wonder if there really IS a difference between Rs and Ds.
HERE’S THE NADER RELEASE:

“The Democratic National Convention that gathers in Denver this week to nominate Barack Obama for president will be more like a coronation than a competition. Huzzahs, speeches, bands, balloons. These affairs have long lost any suspense or spontaneity, but somewhere amid the many corporate “hospitality parties” and lobbyist glad-handing,you’d expect some demonstration of political courage to shift power toward the American people. Instead, voters will watch (or, rather, not watch) as more than $16.5million of their tax dollars (the amount allotted by the federal government for each convention) is spent on saying very little of substance. Rather than ideas, this convention is about power and avoidance: the power of big business and the avoidance of important but neglected issues. Here is a short list of what you won’t hear this week, either on the convention floor or in the party’s platform. Call them the 12 taboos.
1. You won’t hear a call for a national crackdown on the corporate crime, fraud, and abuse that, in just the last few years, have robbed trillions of dollars from workers, investors, pension holders,taxpayers and consumers. Among the reforms that won’t be suggested are resources to prosecute executive crooks and laws to democratize corporate governance so shareholders have real power. Democrats will not shout for a payback of ill-gotten gains, to rein in executive pay, ending corporate personhood, or to demand corporate sunshine laws
. 2. The convention will not demand that workers receive a living wage instead of an inflation ravaged minimum wage. There will be no backing for a repeal of the anti-union Taft-Hartley Act of 1947,which has blocked more than 40 million workers willing to form or join trade unions to improve wages and benefits above Wal-Mart or McDonald’s levels.
3. Barack Obama will not call for a withdrawal from the WTO and NAFTA. Trade agreements should stick to trade while labor,environmental, and consumer rights are advanced by separate treaties with strong enforcement mechanisms without being subordinated to the dictates of international commerce.
4. Obama will steer clear of any suggestion that our income tax system be substantially revamped. Workers should keep more of their wages while we tax the things we like least at the source, such as polluters, stock speculation, addictive industries, and energy guzzling technologies. Corporations should be required to pay their fair share; corporate tax contributions as a percent of the overall federal revenue stream have been declining for 50 years and now stand at about 7.4 percent despite massive record profits.
5. There will be no call for a single-payer health care system. Sixty years after President Truman first proposed it, we still need health insurance for everyone, a program with quality and cost controls and an emphasis on prevention. Full Medicare for everyone will save thousands of lives while maintaining patient choice of doctors and hospitals within a competitive private health care delivery system.
6. There is no reason to believe that the Democrats will stand up to the commercial interests profiting from our current energy situation.We need a straight forward carbon pollution tax, not a convoluted cap-and-trade system that would invite massive manipulation. We need a major environmental health agenda that challenges these entrenched interests with new initiatives in solar energy, efficiency in motor vehicles, and other sustainable and clean energy technologies. Nor will there be any recognition that current fossil fuels are producing cancer, respiratory diseases, and geopolitical entanglements.Finally, there will be no calls for ending environmental racism that leads to contaminated water and air in our cities, to toxic dumps in poorer neighborhoods, and to high toxicities in the workplace.
7. Democrats will not demand a reduction in the bloated, redundant military budget that devours half the federal government’s operating expenditures at a time when there is no Soviet Union or other major state enemy in the world. Studies by the Government Accountability Office and internal Pentagon assessments support the judgment of many retired admirals and generals that a wasteful defense weakens our country and distorts priorities at home.
8. You won’t hear a clarion call for electoral reform. Both parties have shamelessly engaged in gerrymandering, a process that guarantees reelection of their candidates at the expense of frustrated voters.Nor will there be any suggestion that law-abiding ex-felons be allowed to vote. Other electoral reforms should include reducing ballot access barriers to candidates, same day registration, a voter verified paper record for electronic voting, run-off voting to ensure winners receive a majority vote, binding none-of-the-above choicesand most important, full public financing to guarantee clean elections.
9. You will hear no calls for reform of the criminal justice system.Our nation now holds one out of four of the world’s prisoners, half of them nonviolent. While they attempt to counter Republican charges that they favor criminals over victims, Democrats will say nothing about a failed war on drugs that costs $50 billion annually. And they will not argue that addicts should be treated rather than imprisoned. Nor should observers hope for any call to repeal the”three strikes and you’re out” laws that have filled our jails.
10. Democrats will ignore the Israeli peace movement whose members have developed accords for a two-state solution with their Palestinian and American counterparts. It is time to replace the Washington puppet show with a Washington peace show for the security of the American, Palestinian, and Israeli people.
11. The Democrats will not call for the United States to begin a military and corporate total withdrawal from Iraq. Such a withdrawal would result in mainstream Iraqis no longer supporting or joining the insurgency. Internationally UN-supervised elections will allow for appropriate autonomy for the Kurdish, Sunni, and Shi’ite communities within a unified Iraq. Seriously waging peace will be far cheape rthan a permanent war economy which is generating huge deficits and diverting attention, talent, and resources from the necessities of the American people.
12. Democrats will not stand up to business interests that have demanded changes that close the courtroom to wrongfully injured and cheated individuals, but not to corporations. Where is the campaign against fraud and injury upon innocent patients, consumers, and workers? We should make it easier for consumers to band together and defend themselves against harmful practices in the marketplace. To the voters I say: Don’t hold your breath waiting for the Democrats to put people before corporations.
Watch as this Convention obeys the12 taboos.”

Monday August 25, 2008
It’s pushing 5 p.m. in the East, meaning that the Denver Ds are gettin’ close to gaveling the Obama/Biden convention.
The Blogster just got off the phone with a couple of the Connecticut Democratic suspects, who, despite the choreography that could rival Merce Cunningham, aren’t really sure what kind of public display of support Sen. Hillary Clinton will be allowed.
“I know that Sen.Clinton’s delegates are not released at this time and it’s my understanding that they will be released Wednesday at the convention,” said Nancy DiNardo of Trumbull, the Democratic state chairwoman, who threw a bash Sunday night for the Connecticut contingent.
She said there will be some kind of “paper ballot” for delegates Wednesday morning, prior to Clinton’s official release of her delegates to support Sen. Barack Obama.
“I would have to say people are very excited to be here,” she said over the phone. “There are many in the delegation for whom it’s a first-time experience.”
She anticipates the Clinton delegates to get behind Obama. “I truly get the sense that delegates who are Hillary supporters know it would be disasterous to vote for John McCain because it would mean four more years of George Bush and they recognize the country can’t afford that. Many of the Hillary delegates who are women realize having John McCain as president would be a setback to women and women’s rights.”
Susan Cocco, a Ridgefield marketing executive who is Connecticut’s Hillary whip, anticipates “some sort of roll call” on the convention floor, but at this point, it’s not clear how it will manifest itself.
She said that Sen. Clinton will meet and acknowledge her 1,900 delegates Wednesday at 1, after the morning balloting. “I presume at some point during that meeting and discussion she’ll release her delegates,” Cocco said. “Ther’s no doubt that the Democratic party is moving with Barack,” she said.
Attorney General Dick Blumenthal, a Clinton delegate, said this morning before his flight to Denver that he fully anticipates supporting Obama.
The next presidency is at stake, he said.
“This issue is much more simple than may meet the eye,” he told three reporters. “It really is a matter of Democrats feeling powerfully that there must be chance in the White House from the Bush policies of the last four years that would be continued by McCain for the next four years. And that will be a very compelling rallying point for Clinton supporters, which I was,as well as everyone else in the Democratic party who may have preferred other candidates.”
Blumenthal said that McCain’s overtures to disgruntled Hillary supporters will snag no more than a tiny percentage of Democrats.
“The vast majority of the people I know who supported Clinton are absolutely enthusiastically and energetically behind Obama because the choice between him and McCain is so stark,” said Blumenthal, who has known Clinton since Yale Law School. “They’re going to be an energetic for him as they were for her.”

Monday 25, 2008

Going back to last Friday, when the Blogster posted the Biden-for-Veep item, we had just heard from a veteran Connecticut Democrat that there was a prearranged, cryptic signal that emerged from Sen. Joe Biden’s office, to alert certain insiders.
And you read it here first, at about 1:45 p.m., about 14 hours before Sen. Barack Obama released the news via text message to supporters.

Friday August 22, 2008

It’s 1:40 p.m. and Connecticut Democrats are saying they’ve heard that Delaware Sen. Joe Biden is gonna be Barack Obama’s vice presidential guy. You read it here first, if they’re right.

Now it’s 10:40 p.m. and it’s more likely than ever than Biden’s the guy.
Below is a story that ran in the Connecticut Post on April 29, the day after the annual Democratic fund-raiser, when Biden dined with the state’s Democratic elite, if that’s not a contradiction in terms.

By KEN DIXON
Staff writer
HARTFORD – U.S. Sen. Joseph R. Biden, Jr. told Connecticut Democrats on Monday that the upcoming presidential election may be the most-important for the country – and the world – since World War IIover 60 years ago.The veteran Delaware Democrat told about 1,100 people in the Connecticut Convention Center that the November results will be crucial, but a Democratic president and Congress can help “reshape the world.”
“To state the obvious, the next president of the United States has an awesome, awesome responsibility,” Biden said during the state party’s 60th annual Jefferson Jackson Bailey Dinner, which was expected to raise about $300,000. “But also, I would argue the greatest opportunity since any president since Franklin Roosevelt,” the 65-year-old chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said. “An opportunity not only to change the direction of the country, but in a literal sense, aliteral sense, to change the direction of the world.”
Biden, who said he’s undergoing minor surgery at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center Tuesday morning, said the Bush administration has presided over the decline of the economy and the stature of the United States on the world stage.After joking for about eight minutes from the stage about Connecticut’s congressional delegation and praising U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3 and U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, Biden quickly turned serious.
“If we don’t get it right in Iraq, our children and our grandchildren will be fighting there a generation from now,” Bidensaid. “If we don’t end -as Chris has been a leader in attempting todo – George Bush’s assault on our civil liberties we will forfeit a piece of our soul.”
The Bush administration “has dug America into a very, very deephole” and after eight years has made the country “less secure and more isolated than it’s been at any time in its history.” Nancy DiNardo of Trumbull, the chairwoman of the Democratic StateCentral Committee, who is an uncommitted super delegate to the national convention in August, said in an interview that the party will come together once the close primary season is concluded.
“I do believe that when the primaries are over, whoever’s picked willwin,” DiNardo said. The $175-a-head dinner attracted fewer party regulars than in the recent past, when U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton were the keynote speakers. Party high rollers paid up to $2,500 to sit at Biden’s table; $1,000 to sit with a member of Congress and $750 to dine on roasted chicken with constitutional officers including Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. .

Thursday August 21, 2008
The Blogster loves the Capitol’s Hall of Flags, the dark nook on the west side of the building that feature such artifacts as Lafayette’s laced-up field bed, where supposedly the term “sleep tight” originated; and the wheel from the Civil Way field-artillery piece that had a chunk taken out by shrapnel.
The flags themselves are awash in history, especially the one that Connecticut soldiers tore up and kept, rather than surrender to the Confederates. The flag was later pieced together after the survivors of the Rebel prison were freed.
In recent years, after stories in the Connecticut Post revealed that the state’s Civil War flags were crumbling away and in need of conservation, the General Assembly freed up hundreds of thousands of dollars to stabilize them.
That was, until this summer, when Gov. Jodi Rell axed one of the projects after majority Democrats ceded her the responsibility of finding $150-million in budget cuts for the spending plan that took effect July 1.The flag budget was only $2,500, but that’s another piece of the state’s legacy that may not be conserved and instead let to disintegrate in a drawe up on the fifth floor of the Capitol.
Given that context, Rell yesterday showed off part of a new state monument that will be placed at “Grant’s Canal,” in the Vicksburg National Military Park in Mississippi.
During a ceremony at the Gov. William A. O’Neill Armory in Hartford, Rell said the state has a long, continuous history of sending off citizen soldiers to war.
The monument commemorates the 9th Connecticut Volunteer Regiment, known as the “Irish Regiment.” It was one of 30 state Civil War regiments.The 9th, which had volunteers from about 70 Connecticut towns, dug a canal across DeSoto Point, a peninsula in the Mississippi River.
Malaria was responsible for many of the unit’s 150 fatalities at Vicksburg. Unfortunately, the canal effort was abandoned after a month and the 9th was withdrawn. Vicksburg National Military Park has about 1,350 monuments – including 28 state memorials – and hosts nearly 1 million visitors a year.
“It is time – indeed, past time – that a tribute to the citizen-soldiers of Connecticut was placed there as well,” Rell said. “This monument will serve as a lasting memorial to the gallant men of the 9th Connecticut.” Vicksburg surrendered after a 46-day siege, on July 4, 1863.
In 2005, when the state was in better financial position, Rell authorized the 9th Connecticut Regiment Memorial Committee to commission a memorial to those who served at Vicksburg.
The black-and green-grantie monument is 10 feet by 10 feet, weighs 13,597 pounds and will be installed at Vicksburg in October.
Visitors to the state Capitol should know that down in the basement is what’s left of a large battleflag of the Regiment of African-American troops from New Haven who fought in the Civil War, who provided armed support at the Battle of the Crater at Petersburg, Va.

Thursday August 21, 2008

The Blogster loves the Capitol’s Hall of Flags, the dark nook on the west side of the building that feature such artifacts as Lafayette’s laced-up field bed, where supposedly the term “sleep tight” originated; and the wheel from the Civil Way field-artillery piece that had a chunk taken out by shrapnel.
The flags themselves are awash in history, especially the one that Connecticut soldiers tore up and kept, rather than surrender to the Confederates. The flag was later pieced together after the survivors of the Rebel prison were freed.
In recent years, after stories in the Connecticut Post revealed that the state’s Civil War flags were crumbling away and in need of conservation, the General Assembly freed up hundreds of thousands of dollars to stabilize them.
That was, until this summer, when Gov. Jodi Rell axed one of the projects. It was only $2,500, but that’s another piece of the state’s legacy that may not be conserved.
Given that context, Rell yesterday showed off part of a new state monument that will be placed at “Grant’s Canal,” in the Vicksburg National Military Park in Mississippi.
During a ceremony at the Gov. William A. O’Neill Armory in Hartford, Rell said the state has a long, continuous history of sending off citizen soldiers to war.
The monument commemorates the 9th Connecticut Volunteer Regiment, known as the “Irish Regiment.” It was one of 30 state Civil War regiments.The 9th, which had volunteers from about 70 Connecticut towns, dug a canal across DeSoto Point, a peninsula in the Mississippi River.
Malaria was responsible for many of the unit’s 150 fatalities at Vicksburg. Unfortunately, the canal effort was abandoned after a month and the 9th was withdrawn. Vicksburg National Military Park has about 1,350 monuments – including 28 state memorials – and hosts nearly 1 million visitors a year.
“It is time – indeed, past time – that a tribute to the citizen-soldiers of Connecticut was placed there as well,” Rell said. “This monument will serve as a lasting memorial to the gallant men of the 9th Connecticut.” Vicksburg surrendered after a 46-day siege, on July 4, 1863.
In 2005, when the state was in better financial position, Rell authorized the 9th Connecticut Regiment Memorial Committee to commission a memorial to those who served at Vicksburg.
The black-and green-grantie monument is 10 feet by 10 feet, weighs 13,597 pounds and will be installed at Vicksburg in October.
Visitors to the state Capitol should know that down in the basement is what’s left of a large battleflag of the Regiment of African-American troops from New Haven who fought in the Civil War, who provided armed support at the Battle of the Crater at Petersburg, Va.