Massachusetts Liberal

• Engage with Grace -- a reprise

  Last Thanksgiving weekend, many of us bloggers participated in the first documented blog rally to promote Engage With Grace -- a movement aimed at having all of us understand and communicate our end-of-life wishes.
  
  It was a great success, with over 100 bloggers in the healthcare space [...]
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  Posted: November 25, 2009, 4:04pm EST
  

• Oh yeah, can't make me!

  There was an old line in the Statehouse press corps that legislative rules were made for breaking. The rules are overridden in innumerable ways every session for matters mundane -- and occasionally major.
  
  And it's also true that lawmakers passed important changes to their joint rules more than a [...]
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  Posted: November 25, 2009, 5:10am EST
  

• Can't buy me votes

  Word that Steve Pagliucia plans to drop another $5.4 million into his campaign account for the stretch run in the Democratic U.S. Senate primary race, raises the obvious question: is my turkey going to offer praise for Pags as before it provides me with a Thanksgiving experience?
  
  And [...]
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  Posted: November 25, 2009, 5:04am EST
  

• Oh Tisei can you see

  Why, exactly, did Charlie Baker pick is running mate in the days before Thanksgiving -- in the middle of a Democratic U.S. Senate primary?
  
  And how does a 47-year-old gay white man who has worked in the Massachusetts Legislature for 25 years help Baker each the key [...]
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  Posted: November 24, 2009, 5:07am EST
  

• Judgment call

  Just as the question about the size of Martha Coakley's lead for US Senate seat comes into focus, the Globe now offers a story that will truly test the breadth and depth of that support.
  
  The Globe reports that in 1995 Coakley, then head of the Middlesex [...]
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  Posted: November 23, 2009, 5:06am EST
  

• A mile wide and an inch deep

  Speaking of Globe headline writers, a 21 percent lead in the U.S. Senate primary -- with 50 percent uncertain and 24 percent only leaning in one direction doesn't strike me as a "strong" lead.
  
  Unless your previous life was building houses in south Florida prior to Hurricane' [...]
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  Posted: November 22, 2009, 9:13am EST
  

• Senate new math

  I know that math has changed a lot since I was in school, but can someone please explain to me how a Globe headline writer comes to the conclusion that a 21-vote victory margin is "shaky support."
  
  There will be a lot more horse trading and promises made [...]
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  Posted: November 22, 2009, 8:09am EST
  

• Coincidence? I think not.

  I'm reading Joanna Weiss' inaugural op-ed while Mrs. O.L. is reading about the season's hottest new toy.
  
  What's that say about us -- never mind the American public?More blogs about Politics.
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  Posted: November 21, 2009, 10:41am EST
  

• Galooch's Law

  Massachusetts, like other states, has a tradition of naming laws after people who inspire their creation, particularly for causes such as abducted children or victims of drunken driving.
  
  So it's in that tradition that I'm here to propose a new piece of legislation for Massachusetts -- Galooch's [...]
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  Posted: November 21, 2009, 8:32am EST
  

• Beacon Hill firefight

  Hey political junkie. Yeah you. Bored by the lack of real action in the Senate race? Well, I've got the cure for your blues.
  
  That initial skirmish between Deval Patrick and House Speaker Robert DeLeo is starting to really percolate. And no, not over why' [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 5:08am EST
  

• Pols gone wild

  There wasn't some of the blatant stupidity that has marked some legislative sessions -- like the infamous 2000 House "Toga" party.
  
  But the simmering animus between lawmakers and Gov. Deval Patrick boiled to the surface to close the first year of a two-year term that is likely to be' [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 5:00am EST
  

• No interest

  "Dear Valued Customer -- we're jacking up your interest rates to pay for our taxpayer-financed bailout you're already paying for."
  
  That's pretty much the gist behind the mail that has been trickling in over the last few weeks from Citibank, telling me my base credit card interest rate will [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 5:18am EST
  

• Blocking schemes

  It's that time of campaign season, when sincere volunteers and robo candidates bombard your phone with with pleas for support. It's one of the reasons I'm happy to have caller ID.
  
  Or not.
  
  There was an interesting contrast to the two calls yesterday. One listed the number and' [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 5:12am EST
  

• When Coram met Ampad

  Good thing that Senate Democratic candidate Steve Pagliuca hired Tad Devine to do his campaign commercials for him. That way he can't have Devine craft the kind of spot that did in Mitt Romney in his 1994 race against Ted Kennedy.
  
  The Herald has a look at [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 5:28am EST
  

• Senators (and police) behaving badly

  Not that I have any personal experience in the matter, but do cops normally drive you home if you are reported too drunk to do it on your own?
  
  The special treatment afforded Sen. Anthony Galluccio by the Cambridge police also stands in rather sharp contrast to [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 5:12am EST
  

• Another media zoo?

  I couldn't help but notice the coincidence.
  
  The Globe (properly) highlights the peril awaiting many poor families with children after yet another round of human service budget cutting that has -- to date -- been pretty hidden from public view.
  
  Meanwhile, buried as a brief, we quietly' [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 5:01am EST
  

• Two faces of Pags

  Mike Capuano has an anger management problem. Steve Pagliuca has a consistency problem. One can be fixed. The other? I'm not so sure.
  “Steve appreciates the role lobbyists play in educating policy makers on the impact of legislation under consideration,’’ his press aide Will Keyser said. “At the' [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 5:09am EST
  

• Feds to T: Step aside

  The Washington Post is reporting the Obama administration is looking at the idea of having the federal government take over safety regulation of the nation's subway and light-rail transit systems.
  
  After two Green Line crashes in the last two years, it sounds like a marvelous idea.More blogs' [...]
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  Posted: November 15, 2009, 9:07am EST
  

• Truly fruity, oh Rudy!

  Margery Eagan has a great column today that truly makes you hope the Mayan calendar might be right.More blogs about Politics.
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  Posted: November 15, 2009, 9:02am EST
  

• Welcome back Sarah

  I don't know about you, but I've been bereft without Sarah Schweitzer's ongoing saga of how old line and well-t0-do New Englanders have been dealing with the economic downturn.
  
  So her dispatch from the Boston Athenaeum (usually pronounced Athen-EE-um, but sometimes as Athen-AY-um) was an unexpected gift.More blogs' [...]
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  Posted: November 15, 2009, 8:56am EST
  

• There's not an app for that

  Excuse me, but why do I want to pay $3.99 to tell me the train or bus is delayed? I already know that.
  
  And forgive me for being cynical about the ability to accurately predict when it will show up. And how, exactly, will it work in the [...]
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  Posted: November 14, 2009, 2:25pm EST
  

• Predictable hypocrisy

  Leave it to the Republican Party to oppose the Constitution.
  
  House Minority Leader John Boehner is in high dudgeon over the Obama administration's announcement that it will try Khalid Sheik Mohammed and other alleged 9-11 conspirators in a civilian courtroom in New York City. The decision places the' [...]
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  Posted: November 14, 2009, 9:30am EST
  

• Circumstantial ugliness

  There's no way Deval Patrick wins this one.
  
  I seriously doubt Robert and Myra Kraft through they were buying support for a federally financed footbridge over Route 1 when they donated $12,000 to Patrick and the state Democratic Party.
  
  But it hardly matters what the Krafts' [...]
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  Posted: November 13, 2009, 5:33am EST
  

• Oops, I did it again

  The Democratic US Senate candidates have offered a veritable feast in the last few days for political watchers who love to watch candidates screw up.
  
  We'll skip right over Alan Khazei reaching for the endorsement of Mike Bloomberg -- and all that's represented by having a former Medford [...]
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  Posted: November 13, 2009, 5:06am EST
  

• What if you had an election & nobody came?

  Here we are, less than a month from the Dec. 8 Senate primary election and apparently nine in 10 Massachusetts voters don't even know the date -- with 7 in 10 not even knowing the month.
  
  Maybe the candidates ought to make some changes in their ubiquitous television' [...]
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  Posted: November 12, 2009, 5:06am EST
  

• First you say you will, then you won't...

  Who knew you would need Dramamine to keep up with the Massachusetts Democratic Senate primary?
  
  But in an outstanding display of political dexterity, Rep. Mike Capuano has emulated the new senior senator by declaring he was for the bill before he will be against it. And [...]
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  Posted: November 11, 2009, 5:25am EST
  

• Numbers please?

  We're from the government and we're here to help you -- count.
  
  Excellent piece of reporting in today's Globe on how many jobs stimulus dollars are supposed to have have created -- and what the reality is.
  
  While I'm sure critics of the Obama administration (and Deval [...]
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  Posted: November 11, 2009, 5:14am EST
  

• Calculatin' Cahill

  It looks as if Tim Cahill is planning for a gubernatorial campaign with more substance than his daughter inventing a catchy theme that won his the treasurer's job.
  
  But his decision to hire a lawyer to do opposition research -- a move that could enable him to shield' [...]
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  Posted: November 10, 2009, 5:33am EST
  

• The substance of campaign headaches

  Now I see why Steve Lynch opted not to join the race for the Democratic US Senate seat.
  
  While Lynch told the Globe there was no favoritism in the earmarks for substance abuse grants to an organization to which his wife has ties, the reality has a certain [...]
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  Posted: November 10, 2009, 5:27am EST
  

• Be careful what you wish for

  So much for the play-it-safe front runner strategy. But I have to ask: what were you thinking Martha?
  
  Attorney General and Democratic US Senate front-runner Martha Coakley certainly cast off the label of risk aversive yesterday by declaring she would have voted against the US House version [...]
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  Posted: November 10, 2009, 5:05am EST
  

• Of dinners and debates

  One month out from an historic Democratic Senate primary and all we can talk about is debates and dinner tabs?
  
  Oh, I forgot. We can also debate 15-year-old campaign commercials.
  
  And the bad timing of the campaign award goes to the Herald for a story [...]
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  Posted: November 09, 2009, 5:14am EST
  

• Anyone minding the store?

  The screw-ups just keep on coming for the Patrick administration.
  
  One day after the double whammy of stories that suggest the administration seems to favor the Patriots over the homeless we are treated to a Globe story that shows the one thing the state's overburdened transportation doesn't seem [...]
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  Posted: November 08, 2009, 9:02am EST
  

• Appearance counts

  To the policy wonks out there, the Globe's stories about the Patrick administration's use of federal stimulus cash to build a footbridge at Gillette Stadium and plans to reduce funding for the homeless are unrelated -- separate caches of cash to be used for different reasons.
  
  But [...]
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  Posted: November 07, 2009, 8:50am EST
  

• Ready, re-aim, fire

  Now let me get this straight -- you didn't notice the big ship with the guns when you bought the condo?
  
  It seems neighbors of Old Ironsides are looking to change a 200-year-plus tradition of firing the warship's cannons twice daily.
  “The residential population [...]
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  Posted: November 07, 2009, 6:53am EST
  

• This is going to get ugly

  The tragedy at Fort Hood, with the death of 12 soldiers and the wounding of 31 others, would have been bad enough if the gunman was named John Smith.
  
  But I fear that a nation that should focus on what happens when men and women in a voluntary [...]
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  Posted: November 06, 2009, 4:58am EST
  

• Of old dogs and new tricks

  Mayor for Life Tom Menino wants you to believe he is refreshed and energized as he stares at the start of his fifth term -- brimming with new idea to tackle the problems of education, public safety and city administration.
  
  Of course this same new vision suggests the [...]
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  Posted: November 05, 2009, 5:01am EST
  

• Unsafe at any speed

  How'd you like to be on the Green Line this morning reading the Globe headline "Report Finds T's Riders at Risk." Actually it's a somewhat moot point: if you use the MBTA regularly, you already know that.
  
  What's interesting in the report by a special panel commissioned by [...]
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  Posted: November 04, 2009, 5:21am EST
  

• Pundits gone wild

  The great analyzers are offering tales of caution for Barack Obama this morning, with predictions that Republican victories against a wildly unpopular Democrat in New Jersey and by a conservative acolyte in Virginia may be early signs of a tsunami ready to sweep out Democrats a year from [...]
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  Posted: November 04, 2009, 5:00am EST
  

• Inside out

  Well at least the day wasn't a total loss for Steve Pagliuca. The Celtics cinched an important part of their future by signing Rajon Rondo to a multi-year deal.
  
  But if the Globe's Bob Ryan finds the 23-year-old Rondo "inscrutable" what to make of one of the men [...]
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  Posted: November 03, 2009, 5:05am EST
  

• Elephant death rattle

  Shh. If you're really quiet, you may actually hear the sound of the Republican Party coming apart at the seams.
  
  On the one hand, you have the effort by moderates trying to revive the virtually extinct New England branch of the party once so honorably represented in Massachusetts' [...]
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  Posted: November 02, 2009, 5:06am EST
  

• Family values

  Funny, it seems the GOP "values voters" seem to be talking a lot less about the subject these days.
  
  Could it be that this contrast -- a White House of Halloween trick-or-treating and an honest discussion of marriage compared to the tabloid trashing going [...]
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  Posted: November 01, 2009, 12:51pm EST
  

• Is that all there is?

  As we get ready to pull the curtain to unveil Boston Mayor Tom Menino's fifth term "vision," it seems high time to reflect what is and what's in store.
  
  The Globe offers a look today at mixed messages in crime prevention and education. Scot Lehigh treated us [...]
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  Posted: November 01, 2009, 8:58am EST