June 26, 2008
In the new issue of the Boston Phoenix I have a short item (from the "This Just In" section) about Vicente Lebron, popular percussionist for Either/Orchestra. Lebron, who has lived (and played) in the Boston area for 30+ years, has been thrown into a jail cell and slated for deportation by the Department of Homeland Security. Read about it here.
June 25, 2008
The Republican Party -- nationally and here in Massachusetts -- finds itself on the outs with the general public, unloved, disrespected and untrusted on almost every issue.
But thank goodness for the pervs! Everybody sides with Republicans when it comes to pervs!
The Supreme Court -- those liberal NAMBLAphiles -- today ruled that execution is a no-go for child rapists. John McCain is outraged! He find it "profoundly disturbing"! (The ruling, not the child rapes. Or executions.) Most of the conservative blog sites are making much hay of the ruling as well.
Closer to home, State House News Service reports that the Mass. GOP sees a golden political opportunity in Beacon Hill Democrats' slow movement on mandatory minimum sentencing for -- you guessed it -- child rapists. (Beacon Hill's reticence on the issue has also been played up nationally by the right.
You may recall that when Kerry Healey found herself trailing far behind Deval Patrick in the polls, she accused him of being soft on rapists. She lost badly anyway. But her examples (Ben LaGuer and a shadowy figure in a dark garage) were raping grown women; maybe Republicans figure they can get more traction with child rape.
June 25, 2008
The Herald's Dave Wedge picks up on the perceived Menino snub of John Kerry that I mentioned in writing about the state Democratic Convention, and calls it a "high-profile slap." Wedge has the tensions between the two camps about right, I'd say.
The big backdrop of this, of course, is that Kerry represents Boston's lifeline to the federal government if and when Ted Kennedy has to leave the Senate. Purely from the perspective of weilding power, the city and state require a strong John Kerry, not a weakened one, if the incredible Kennedy power is gone.
So, you wouldn't think it would be in Menino's best interest to embarrass Kerry and force him into a potentially damaging primary. Or should I say, it doesn't seem to be in Boston's best interest.
June 25, 2008
In my late-2006 essay on the coming Democratic ascendancy, I wrote the following about "Millennials":
There is strong reason to suspect that this will be the most solidly Democratic
generation since the Progressive Era. That’s not because they’re a bunch of lefties; they
aren’t. What they are is residents of 21st century America, a place where the
Republican Party seems incredibly ill at ease.
Young adults needn’t hold a shared opinion about John
Maynard Keynes to agree that 82-year-old Alaska Senator Ted “Tubes” Stevens
shouldn’t be in charge of Internet regulation.
Admitted tech-illiterate John McCain isn't exactly the guy to undo that reputation for the GOP, as David Corn writes at CQPolitics. He asks whether America should elect a President who doesn't even know how to use a computer. Corn quotes a McCain online advisor who was recently asked that question, whose response included the ready-for-mocking phrase: "John McCain is aware of the Internet." (I believe the video is now making the rounds.)
On a somewhat related note... over at the Environmental "Protection" Agency, we have the latest on how the White House derailed the determination that greenhouse gases are indeed pollutants: they refused to open the emails informing them of the finding.
June 24, 2008
Regular readers of this blog know two things: 1) I love everybody, and 2) San Franciscoans are a bunch of pathetic losers jealously pretending that their city is as gay and liberal as Boston.
But even I have to admit, the Bitter Bay's latest attempt to claim the kook crown is looking fairly impressive: the Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco has reportedly gathered enough signatures to get its initiative on the November ballot, if the signatures hold up.
What's the PMCSF, you ask, and what is the initiative? It's quite simple: it aims to create an enduring legacy to President George W. Bush by naming the local sewage-treatment plant in his honor.
With a board of directors that includes Peaches Christ, former Mayoral candidate Chicken John Rinaldi ("Nuisance '07!"), and two members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence Inc., PMCSF set out to gather signatures for their initiative.
They succeeded in what I consider the ultimate prize of this sort of endeavor: getting a serious person to comment about them. In this case, it was California state GOP chair Howard Epstein who took the bait. He called it "looney bin direct democracy," and "far-left loonies trying to play games with the city."
Worse, he vowed that if the measure makes the ballot, he will spend large amounts of the state GOP's money fighting for its defeat. I can't imagine much of a better impetus for gaining signatures than the idea of Republicans mailing expensive glossy brochures to SF residents explaining why President George W. Bush's name should not be forever attached to a huge vat of excrement.
Anyway, the "Commission" now claims to have more than 8500 signatures, which is 1300 more than needed by the July 7 deadline -- and I have a feeling they may add quite a few more at next weekend's Pride Parade. I might have to be impressed. At the very least, it's a better joke than our ballot initiative to eliminate the income tax.
June 24, 2008
Apparently, all it takes is a couple hundred phone calls to get a major corporation to bend to your personal discriminatory animus. This time it's Heinz, pulling a UK ad that featured two men kissing. Previously, of course, Dunkin' Donuts pulled an ad that, in the tiny mixed-up mind of Michelle Malkin, promoted murderous Palestinian extremism.
Guardian reports that "about 200 complaints" to the Advertising Standards Authority prompted Heinz to take down the ad. I don't know much about Brit viewership, but that sounds like a pretty small number.
Does this mean that I can get rid of commercials I don't like -- say, that infuriatingly catchy "CreditReport.com" jingle -- by getting 200 people to file complaints?
June 24, 2008
The title of this post is actually a serious question, with potentially major consequences for national politics.
Religious leaders are not allowed to specifically endorse candidates from the pulpit -- well, actually, they may do so but their churches would lose their federal tax exemption. Tax-exempt religious organizations, like other non-profits, may not participate in partisan political advocacy under IRS rules.
Since last year, the Christian right has been talking about challenging that rule in '08. But their carefully laid plan of attack has been snarled by the wonderfully loopy Bill Keller -- "world leading Internet evangelist." Keller has insulted many famous people, from Oprah to Obama, but he is most famous for his classic line: "A vote for Romney is a vote for Satan."
The IRS is now investigating whether that statement pushed Keller over the line, and outside the rules for tax exemption. Keller argues that he was merely making a religious statement about the tenets of Christianity vs. Mormonism. But it sure sounds like a political statement against voting for a specific candidate. Where's the line? And what about Keller's more recent assertion that Barack Obama is an "enemy of God," complete with Biblical explanation for his use of the phrase?
Who knew that insulting Mitt Romney could be so complicated?
June 12, 2008
--Hey, all you Democratic delegates who have been whining about the food at the Tsongas Arena: at least it wasn't Fenway Park.
--Hard to imagine Obama being in town with this little buzz in the local media, huh?
--My question about the TOUCH-FM controversy (well covered by Brian Ballou today) is and has been: why did the Southern New England Society of Broadcast
Engineers drop the dime to the FCC in the first place? Dan K, get me an answer!
--Honestly, everybody in this town, upon seeing the Deval Patrick 20-accomplishments list, immediately thought: "Jon Keller's going to have a field day with this." Does Jessica Heslam really think he needed anybody, let alone Barney, to plant that thought in his head? C'mon, one reason I didn't bother mocking the list was that I assumed Jon would be whacking that one good.
--OK, I'll say it: she interned at MassEquality, chose Smith College, and Deval didn't know? And I thought he was smart.....
June 11, 2008
You may recall that the practice of legislative "ghost voting" got some bad press around here recently. In April, Burlington representative (and one-time DLC '100 To Watch' honoree!) Chares A. Murphy cast a series of votes in the House chamber when he was physically on the Virgin Islands. (Speaker DiMasi is getting to the bottom of that, right?)
Well, California -- that copy-cat gay-marrying state -- just got caught copying our sneaky tactic -- and then claiming that they've been doing it for decades.
But now it looks like the Mass. House might have stolen the idea from -- horror of horrors -- the backwater, Bush-loving, Tom DeLay red-staters of Texas. As it turns out, they're a little less subtle about it down in the Lone Star State (or the Austin media is more savvy): check out this KEYE-TV special report with video footage of legislators traipsing around, pushing vote buttons willy-nilly.
June 10, 2008
--Sure, O'Reilly is good on the issues, but can he match Kerry's record on constituent services?
--Spread the word: I'm hoping to get a job with Michael Flaherty's campaign.
--Who else here thinks the teachers' union is the problem?
--I think this will be just a minor blip in Marzilli's political career.
--I've gotta say, Torkildsen really is going to make us work, with that powerhouse slate of candidates he's recruited.
--Mmmm-mm! I am stuffed!
--So I said to Bobby DeLeo: Just take the earmarks for my district out, the principle means more to me than the funding.
--Really? There are gay delegates here? I'm surprised.
--To me, the most important consideration is: Who has the better chance of beating Jeff Beatty?
June 09, 2008
--AP's Devlin Barrett reminds us that pundits once anticipated a three-way, all-New York Presidential campaign this fall. Yeah, and the Yankees and Mets will meet in the World Series. Ha!
--Flaschner Judicial Insitute is sponsoring an interesting-looking legal panel on the ripple effects of the Goodrich decision, Wednesday at the John Adams courthouse.
--More on this race later, but after initial skepticism I'm beginning to think that Scott Brown should be worried.
--For what it's worth, I tend to agree with Tom Brokaw's analysis contained here (in an AP article about former Phoenix colleague Mark Jurkowitz's latest PEJ study), that the months-long media obsession with Clinton's need to end her campaign was obnoxious, inappropriate, and interminable... but that it stemmed less from sexism than from "too much time and too little imagination."
--Saw House Banking Chair Barney Frank at the Mass Dem Convention, and asked him what Friday's economic news means. It means that the American economic problem is prolonged, he said: "we're a long way from turning it around."
--This is what I get for siding with a Republican: Lawrence Mayor Michael Sullivan was trounced by Methuen Mayor Bill Manzi in their weight-loss competition. This blog publicly supported Sullivan (a Republican), and insinuated that Manzi (a Democrat) would resemble some of the more rotund species of farm animal by contests' end. Well, Manzi showed more discipline than I anticipated, and came away an easy winner. I humbly congratulate the much-deserving winner, and turn my back on the disgraced loser forever.
June 09, 2008
The Massachusetts Democratic Party held its state convention Saturday -- it was a warm, warm day, but fortunately the convention planners seated the 2nd Suffolk delegation right in the center of Tsongas arena, so the building was kept cool by the icy chill generated between Dianne Wilkerson and Sonia Chang-Diaz. (It figures to be even frostier at their first debate later this week, sponsored by the 5th Ward.)
The only significant question was whether US Senate challenger Ed O'Reilly would get the necessary 15% to get on the ballot against John Kerry, and by Saturday morning everyone had conceded that he would. His supporters -- primarily anti-war progressives still begrudging Kerry's 2002 authorization vote -- were more motivated to get to Lowell on a sunny Saturday than the do-as-their-told rank and file. That included many of Tom Menino's people, whose absences were pointed out by several observers, sparking some to speculate that the mayor was deliberately dissing Kerry, although others said Menino had simply told his delegates that they need not forego their weekend getaway to the Cape for the essentially meaningless gathering.
That mini-controversy underscored the unavoidable tension of the convention, and in the state party: the ongoing sectarian tensions between the Clintonites and the Obamans. Kerry is a full-bore Obama loyalist, and most of the Democratic leaders and activists in Massachusetts -- including Menino -- are Clinton dead-enders. Interestingly, Hillary gave her big Barack-endorsing speech during the convention, so all but a small percentage who gathered around TVs on the concourse missed her call for unity. The same plea was made several times from the dais, most notably from Obama friend (or Clinton betrayer, depending on one's viewpoint) Deval Patrick.
It was hard to tell how much of O'Reilly's vote came from Angry Clintonistas seeking to stick it to Kerry, but it was not an insignificant number. "I know a lot of women who will vote for O'Reilly today just to embarrass John Kerry," one state rep told me. On the other hand, as city councilor Mike Ross pointed out, the Ward 5 Democratic Committee unanimously endorsed Kerry, and that's a group with quite a few Clinton supporters, not to mention a bunch of super-lefties unhappy with Kerry over the war and his failure to support gay marriage.
And while it might have been coincidence, Kerry sent up two die-hard Clinton supporters to introduce him: AG Martha Coakley, and Robert Kennedy Jr., standing in for Ted. (And by the way, O'Reilly really is a dead ringer for Joe K. when he's making a speech.) Coakley also gave the introduction for another presentation, one that carried heavy Hillary-crowd undertones: the first graduating class of Emerge Massachusetts, a project by which the state's powerful women -- mostly the same ones leading the Clinton battle -- are training up-and-coming women to run for political office. It's pretty clear that battle lines have been drawn.
In the end, despite intense pressure from party leaders and activists, O'Reilly got 22%, a number more than sufficient to force Kerry's first primary in 24 years. Boston's contingent held the line for Kerry with only a few defectors, but once you got out to suburbia the story was different: Newton and Wellesley, for instance -- where you'll find both anti-war liberals and pro-Hillary women in abundance -- delegates went nearly 40% for the challenger.
Kerry, with Teresa beside him, gave a brief presser outside for the couple of reporters (NECN and Channel 5) who were willing to pretend to care about the senator pretending to be happy with the results. Then they asked him about the Clinton-Obama rift. "People are going to come together," he predicted.
Kerry was more convincing the next morning, serving as Obama surrogate on ABC's This Week, debating McCain supporter Lindsay Graham.
June 04, 2008
As expected, the California Supreme Court has denied an attempt to stay implementation of its gay-marriage ruling, meaning that same-sex marriages will commence on June 17th. (That's less than two weeks to shop!) It gave no particular explanation, but it was pretty clear from the start that the parties bringing the motion to stay had no standing to do so -- and that the four justices with the majority were unlikely to buy the idea of chaos ensuing from a few months of gay marriage that might be undone by a November ballot initiative.
There's an interesting parallel, BTW, with what happened in Massachusetts. In both cases, anti-gay-marriage forces argued that the court's decision should be stayed until pending citizen initiatives had the chance to play out. In both cases, that motion for a stay would properly be brought by the state Attorney General. In both cases, the state AG (Tom Reilly here, Jerry Brown there) had personally, publicly opposed gay marriage -- and in both cases, they nevertheless announced that they would honor the court's decision and not ask for a stay.
Of course, here in Massachusetts our Governor-cum-Presidential-candidate tried to order the AG to do it, and then joined the motion for a stay in his role as "private citizen." In California, their Governor-procluded-from-Presidency said fine, go get gay married then.
June 04, 2008
--Today is Public Employee Recognition Day in Massachusetts, so here's a shout-out to some of my favorite people working for the state and city.... who I can unfortunately refer to only as "Statehouse insider," "source in City Hall," "person close to the committee," "high-ranking department official," "aide to a state legislator," and "Beacon Hill veteran." And hey, if you bump into "city employee who wishes to remain anonymous while speaking about the Mayor," tell him/her I say keep up the good work!
--I went to a board meeting of the Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy yesterday, which featured a sneak preview of a children's book that has been commissioned for the inaugural this fall: "Rose's Garden," about a little girl planting a garden. Curmudgeon that I am, I had my doubts. But I must admit, I liked it. The author, Peter H. Reynolds, told me that he met with Ted Kennedy a few months ago, and spent an hour letting the senator talk about his mother, about the legacy of the park, etc.
--I don't think this is how Marty Walsh wants to get his name in the papers.
--You think the GOP is in bad shape in Massachusetts? Yesterday this guy became the Republican nominee for US Senate in Montana.
--I keep a close watch on women in politics, and particularly the rapid decline in female Republican officeholders. One of the party's few potential stars, US Rep. Heather Wilson of New Mexico (a Keene, NH native!), looked like she could become the Senate nominee in New Mexico, for Pete Domenici's seat. But conservative groups, including Club for Growth, narrowly pushed US Rep. Steve Pearce to victory in yesterday's primary (despite Domenici's intervention on behalf of Wilson). Pearce will likely lose to the Democratic nominee, US Rep. Tom Udall; Wilson might have had a chance. It now appears that the GOP will, at best, stay at five women senators, although two of them (Collins-ME and Dole-NC) could potentially be toppled. The Democrats are currently at 11, and although they could lose Landrieau of Louisiana, they will likely gain Shaheen in NH, and possibly Hagan in NC.
June 03, 2008
Would-be somebody Jim Ogonowski sent out an angry press release earlier today, saying he had submitted enough certified signatures to get on the ballot. He was wrong, reports Frank Phillips. Now Jeff Beatty has the GOP Senate nomination to himself. Please, please, will the GOP now let Ogo go back to being the nice, ordinary guy he was and stop trying to make him into a candidate for high office?