It's hard cutting through the cacaphony of candidate diaries on here right now, but if you actually made it here, the bloggers in Connecticut sure could use your help fighting back against a Bush fundraiser!

The details, in the form of an email that we are circulating are below.

Help offset President Bush's fundraiser against freshman Chris Murphy and challenger Jim Himes.  Donate today!

Help offset President Bush's fundraiser against freshman Chris Murphy and challenger Jim Himes.  Donate today!

This Friday, George W. Bush is coming to Henry Kissinger's house in Kent, Connecticut for an exclusive, $1000 a head ($10,000 for a snapshot with the President!) fundraiser for Republican Challenger David Cappiello (running against Democratic Freshman Representative Chris Murphy) in Connecticut's 5th Congressional District.

We are very close to raising enough money to make the very exciting convention detailed below a success!  We need to raise about $1,000 in the next few days to pull all of these events together.  Any help you can give will be greatly appreciated!

Of course, all are invited to the convention!

The National Democratic Law Students Council is excited to announce our Third Annual National Convention!  The Convention will be held on the campus of The Ohio State University, Moritz College of Law, in Columbus, Ohio, from February 22nd - 24th.  All (not just law students) are invited!  We are expecting to welcome roughly 200 Democratic law students and guests from more than 40 different law schools.  Our goal is to spread awareness of voting rights issues, provide tools for interest Democratic law students to become involved in voter protection and campaign work, and to energize our guests to get involved in the 2008 election - and to take back OHIO!

The National Democratic Law Students Council is excited to announce our Third Annual National Convention!  The Convention will be held on the campus of The Ohio State University, Moritz College of Law, in Columbus, Ohio, from February 22nd - 24th.  All (not just law students) are invited!  We are expecting to welcome roughly 200 Democratic law students and guests from more than 40 different law schools.  Our goal is to spread awareness of voting rights issues, provide tools for interest Democratic law students to become involved in voter protection and campaign work, and to energize our guests to get involved in the 2008 election - and to take back OHIO!

The NDLSC is also very excited (read: thrilled) to announce that House Judiciary Committee Chairman and Michigan Democratic Representaitve John Conyers will be the Convention's keynote speaker!

Crossposted at CT Local Politics: Our Primaries are better than yours!

Connecticut is allocated 60 delegates to the Democratic National Convention - 48 of which are pledged to candidates based on the result of Tuesday's priamry (the other 12 are Super-Delegates who are free to vote for whomever they want at the Convention.  TrueBlueCT helpfully provided an accounting of these delegates the other day: Obama leads Clinton 5-1 with 6 delegates uncommitted (and, it should be noted, the commitments can change at anytime).

Of those 48 pledged delegates, 31 are assigned to particular Congressional Districts (and are pledged based on the proportional results in that CD) as follows:

   *  CD 1: 7
   * CD 2: 6
   * CD 3: 7
   * CD 4: 5
   * CD 5: 6

The remaining 17 delegates are statewide delegates and are pledged proportionately based on the state wide results.

7th ranked House Democratic Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT3) is set to endorse Senator Barack Obama in a press conference tomorrow morning.  This is a bit of a repudiation of Senator Clinton, as Rep. DeLauro's husband is former Clinton pollster, Stanley Greenberg.

In doing so, Rep. DeLauro will join 5th ranked House Democratic Representative John Larson (D-CT1).

Taken together, these endorsements are highly significant for the outcome of the Connecticut Primary...

Largely cross-posted from CTLocalPolitics: Our Primaries are Better than Yours!

The Jim Himes campaign has launched a new website devoted to Chris Shays’ idea of "oversight" (or lack thereof) from his perch on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee:

Chris Shays serves on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. But instead of using his position to actually conduct oversight of private security contractors in Iraq and ask the tough questions that his job demands, he has been using it to relentlessly defend the Bush Administration and effusively praise witnesses like the CEO of Blackwater USA:

Video after the jump...

And don't forget to reward good behavior!

One day after an ordinance passed the Board of Alderman of New Haven, CT that would allow undocumented workers to get photo ID, open bank accounts, get library books, generally integrate themselves in to American society and culture, and avoid being targets for violent crime, ICE carried out a raid on undocumented workers in the Fair Haven, CT.  

Cross-posted at Connecticut Local Politics

Tonight, New Haven has passed the first legislation of its kind in the country by a vote of 25-1 - A municipal ID bill that would open up an array of services to New Haven residents, including undocumented aliens.

The Courant had a story today that explains the program:

To address the problem, New Haven wants to create a municipal identification card, which supporters say would help assimilate immigrants as well as provide a range of benefits to other residents who may not have official IDs, such as the elderly and children.

The card would be recognized as official identification within city limits, allowing immigrants to open bank accounts and avoid carrying around wads of cash.

The card also would provide all holders access to city services, from parks to libraries, and function as a type of limited debit card.

Connecticut Local Politics has been lucky lately to have a plethora of guest posts from progressive politicians and candidates (and from our Republican Lt. Governor) on issues and subject that are important to Nutmeggers.

Today, we are lucky to host a post, our second one, from Senior Senator and Presidential Candidate Chris Dodd on the Feingold-Reid-Dodd amendment vote and the future.

Excerpts below the fold.

Senator Chris Dodd has reached out to the Connecticut blogging community by outlining his views on the various proposals to block (or scold) the administration's plan to escelate the Iraq war:

Crossposted at Connecticut Local Politics!
CGG contributed to the creation of this post.  All pictures were taken by CGG, except for the Party Shot which was taken by Chris Bowers.

CGG and I spent yesterday in DC enjoying the pageantry of the celebrations surrounding the incoming 110th Congress (which CGG will post on extensively later).  We were sitting in the Union Pub at the Connecticut Democratic Delegation's Welcome Party for their new members when we were informed that we were just across the street from Senator Lieberman's party.  What's an intrepid Connecticut blogger to do?  Crash, of course (especially since we had seen every Connecticut Democrat at the party, but didn't see anyone elected on the Connecticut for Lieberman line)!

Ned Lamont has emailed those who signed up to volunteer at NedLamont.com and informed us that a campaign staffer would be contacting each of the volunteers individually to discuss next steps (text of the email below.

He also wrote that he expects the primary campaign to cost $500,000 in addition to the personal money that he will contribute.

Now is the chance for those of use who have decried the actions of Joe Lieberman to put up or shut up.

Attached to an article about the AFA protesting Wal-Mart's use of "Happy Holidays" is a poll asking what we think...

From an AP article about the voters voting to suspend the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights (which, if you haven't heard about it, is an interesting article):

Did you ever wake up early on Christmas morning, run down stairs and stare at the Christmas presents and wonder what was in them?  Maybe even shake one or two to see if held any clues?

Thats where I am right now, only the tree is CNN and the internet...

Before I start let me just say that Lieberman is my Senator and (with exception of Al D'mato) my least favorite Senator of all time.  That being said, I am not sure which way I break on the below, but I feel that it is a discussion worth having.

This post was inspired by Kos' posts here and here and the dicussions (mostly focused on the merits (or lack thereof) of Lieberman).

I think we can all agree that most (if not all) of us in the net-roots are limited by either time or money or both (George Soros - ignore this post).  

Today's New York Times has an interesting story regarding the disputed election ... in the Ukraine!

With more than 99 percent of ballots counted, the government tally gave Mr. Yanukovich 49.42 percent of the vote to 46.7 percent for Viktor A. Yushchenko, whose supporters turned out in the tens of thousands in Independence Square here, vowing not to move until results were reversed.

It gets better on the flip...