Happy New Year

to all and sundry....

Well...even as the rest of us stagger thru to New Years

Politics keeps ticking away behind the scenes, case in point John Kerry, Victoria Reggie Kennedy and the DSCC have all loudly endorsed Ed Markey's bid to become a US Senator in the upcoming special senate election....assuming of course, John Kerry is confirmed as Secretary of State. Taken all together, and we can deduce that there is a concerted effort going on behind the scenes to keep the democratic senatorial primary as restricted as possible so as to give the presumptive nominee Ed Markey some momentum and maneuvering room agin' the GOP's presumptive Colonel Scott Brown. Of course this is just the sort of "concerted effort" that piss off someone somewheres and touch off a free-fer-all democratic primary... Kerry's endorsement I get, he has always been pretty free with his support (he once reached waaay down to a special state senate election in the Fourth Middlesex to gin up Ken Donnelly back in the day)...the others though, clearly smack of some strong politicking behind the scenes, likely by State Chair John Walsh. I'm sorta curious to see where Citizen Warren lands in all this, by June 2013 she could be the Senior Senator from Massachusetts, you'd think her endorsement would be a sought after thing in the above matrix. That much bears observation going forward.

Ah spoke too soon...

Looks like Congressman Ed Markey is piling in to the special senate election with both feet. I'd still like to know why he stayed out in 2010 though... And for that fact does his internal polling really reveal that his "Republican War on the Poor" meme will play in North Brookfield. Ah but I snark, I do think Ed might be enough of a yeti to keep his congressional colleagues out of the Senate Race...but then again that might not be a good thing regardless of any fears of a "bloody primary donnybrook". And if Ed does get the nomination then I'd just like to casually advise him that Scott Brown is a better debater than he seems...and if Congressman Markey starts up with his "GOP war on the poor" mantra Brown's likely response will be "My opponent has had over thirty years to solve this problem with little to show for it..." In other words Congressman Markey had better figure out how to turn a long liberal record in public life to his advantages, because trust me, it'll be the first thing turned against him in the General Election. And don't look to the Boston Globe for any help either, that lot has a vested interest in chaos on the campaign trail and nice close election....nothing more. Nonetheless, I wish the Congressman well, he is articulate able and well intentioned, but he has to transcend if he wants to win.

So Far So Little

Teddy Kennedy Jr. doesn't wanna run for the US Senate (which is good he would be a tough sell for a number of reasons) Ben Affleck doesn't wanna run either....Both these guys have high name recognition, presumed fundraising chops and short political resumes...on the other hand they have some baggage and baggage is a thing to avoid I think as the next special senate election looms. So far no one has announced or done anything except signal a vague desire to run, and yet for all that the Boston Globe more or less assumes that the democrats will offer up a newspaper-pleasin' firefight of a primary. So far I don't see it, but that can change. Mostly I'm just wondering why suddenly Ed Markey is interested in the sinecure? He bailed on it in 2010 leaving Mike Capuano to hold high the banner of the US House....must be sick of being in the minority in John Boehner's Chamber... Of course if the dems wanna hold the seat, I'd say they need someone with some fundraising chops, an interesting message who comes with a short political resume, preferably with some bona fides outside state politics. But this is but a sketch as to who fills that bill yer guess is as good as mine. But if we want a pure celebrity driven candidacy, I'd mark out hard if comedienne Sarah Silverman made the race, hell her baggage is picturesque and makes Ben Affleck's baggage look like an empty gym bag....

Michael Graham's contract at WTKK

has not been renewed and consequently Friday last was his last public broadcast. Ahem... Give me a moment here... HAR HAR!!! Excuse me I had to do that. Well just think in just twenty six weeks, once unemployment runs out poor Mike will be on WELFARE. Now that will be a Youtube moment to be sure....Michael gets enrolled among "The Takers"....

Happy Holidays

Merry Christmas, a Joyous Channukah & Felicitous Kwanzaa and a festive Festivus... *** It is a sociable time of the year, lots of family and friends and hopefully glad tidings. Nonetheless, do take a moment to take stock of yourself, give thanks, get off alone, take your shoes off, wash your feet, look at the Moon And Try To Get Close To God. And when you are done with all that, log onto the internet and read the Chimes at Midnight, because if my stats are any indications, MAN do I need the mouse clix! :D Happy Holidays, better times are coming...

Congrats to Senator Kerry

on grabbing off the Big Brass Ring at Foggy Bottom, I wish him well. (I've lost the argument, I was never IN the argument lets face it, have to man up and move on sez Humble Elias). Meanwhile, seven out of nine local congressman have awoken to see a Future US Senator in the shaving mirror... among them: Ed Markey the long serving Rep in the Seventh Congressional District, tall reasonably articulate, well entrenched in a safe district with tons of cash on hand...he'd be an immediate front runner if and when he piles in. On the other hand representing the safest democratic district since Adam means he has never had to run any kind of a real campaign in a general election, Ed tend to being a doctrinaire liberal and while that plays well at the Lexington Elks Club the message may be more problematic in North Brookfield. Finally, while I like Ed, he lacks a sense of whimsy, he grinds when he should stop smile and laugh a little, no sure how he'd play statewide. Mike Capuano: passionate, Passionate, PASSIONATE, did I mention how PASSIONATE Mike Capuano is?? He is also almost impossibly honest by all accounts out of Somerville, the Spartans love him even if they are bound in loyalty to Ed Markey and that is no small thing. However, I worry about Mike's judgement, he got schooled by Martha Coakley in that primary back in 2010, I sometimes wonder if Mike is so eager to return fire he'll shoot himself in the foot? Steve Lynch: Steve is what passes for a conservative democrat in Massachusetts Politics, by all accounts he ought to be angling to succeed Menino, but for some stupid reason he wants to run for Senator....Ghod knows why. Outside his own district he won't do much business either with moderates (who won't cotton to his chummy clubby Southie bona fides) and he certainly won't wear well among suburban liberals. But then again, let a hundred flowers bloom and all like that, the man has a right to make his case in a fair and open primary and once again Humble Elias is a lonely voice for a primary where all factions within the party and consulted & debated. But whoever gets the nomination, lets just remember that Scott Brown is no pushover he will wolverine gone mad on crystal meth to get his old job back, count on it.

Oh and Wayne LaPierre, Jefe Maximo of the NRA

thinks the Sandy Hook Massacre is all the fault of violent movies and video games... Oh my sweet Jesus, the biggest frightmonger in the USA, a man who has resolved himself into a sort of berserker amateur psychiatrist who insists that the answer to all fears, phobias and angst, is GUN OWNERSHIP....thinks that "Call to Duty III" is to blame. There is something sick, demented and typical about that...although his solution tops his diagnosis by a country mile, ARMED GUARDS at all public schools in the land... And who the hell is gonna pay for all those trained armed secuurity guards in the schoolyards of America??? Me that is who, wealthy lobbyists like Wayne LaPierre never have to bear the financial or moral consequences of their own bad ideas....count on it. "Buy Guns, Not Books" is the NRA's answer in sum. And not for nothing but at Columbine and Virginia Tech there were several armed police officers at the respective schools when the gunfire commenced, they were out of position and unable to do anything else but call for back up...which any alert unarmed person could have done... This is the problem with the NRA and GOAL and all that lot, they won't negotiate, they won't budge an inch and their answer is pure homeopathic sociology, the solution to rampant gun violence, is more guns. Don't kid yourselves one of the greatest social engineering experiments has been going on in this country for over thirty years, it comes down to this "An armed society with complete firearm saturation, IS A SAFE SOCIETY". Well trust me there are allegedly three hundred million firearms circulating out there, one for each and every American citizen or whatnot... Anyone out there feel safe?

Boehner's Boner....

"Plan B" his bid to safeguard some Bush era tax cuts couldn't even be brought to a vote in a committee before the Tea Partei's Visigoth wing put the kibosh on it. What did I tell you all not two weeks ago, President Obama hasn't got negotiating partners worth shit...and Boehner hasn't got the decisiveness of a bed of kelp. The Speaker lapsed into complete passive aggressive impotence today, announcing that it weas "up to the President and the US Senate" to come up with a plan that averts the fiscal cliff...seldom has a US Politician made his emasculation so utterly explicit. Well...lets face it, Boehner is another Newt Gingrich, basically a bully good at making life miserable for outcasts but has no real leadership skills or sense of honor for that fact. He is a weak man who can neither negotiate with the President with any success nor keep his own caucus in line...truly what good is he? So I reiterate, we are gonna need to "make the fiscal cliff work for us" as appalling as that may sound because right now, The US House is incapable of acting in a sane reasonable fashion mostly because of a tightly wound caucus-within-the-majority who one and all represent not congressional districts but their own personal wingnut fantasy worlds. And until reality smashes its way thru, they will do nothing but make stupid empty threatening noises... At the moment, it is "advantage Obama"....for now at least.

Congrats to Brian McGrory on his elevation

to the editorship of the Boston Globe, I like to make fun of him (mercilessly) but at the very least Morrissey Boulevard opted for a journalist to run the paper and one with solid roots in the community. In other words, they did not go with an MBA, so that at least is some good counterintuitive thinking on their part. Of course this does mean that the Globe will go on trying to fantasize a Moderate Republican Faction into existence, McGrory was a big mark for the "George Bush Jr, Bill Weld, Mitt Romney & Scott Brown are all MODERATES" meme...that much won't change. It comes as no surprise to me that right next to the announcement of McGrory's promotion on the front page of the Globe was a long loving article trying to gin up Bill Weld's chances of running for the US Senate, again. I mean clearly the Globe is just desperate for Bill to resurrect himself, jug and all. *** Well whatever, but as long as there is a vacancy on the Metro Pages of the Globe I'd like to propose MYSELF as the new columnist! I'd be good at it if only by keeping my ego in check, staying vigilant & trying to listen before forming one of my classic "sarcastic rant driven" columns. I've worked in the dino media on and off down thru the years and am familiar with all the eternal verities of the business... Granted I don't live in Boston, but these days who does? I'd be willing to move if the $$ was right. :D Well anyway if you can't hire me, I say go whole hog with Sarah Silverman, that dame can seriously stir some shit up, and she is local (well, New Hampshire local, same diff)

On a Second Reading of Burke's "Reflections on the Revolution in France"

Y''know he'd try to hit me with his walking stick, but I begin to suspect Mister Burke (the very founder of modern conservatism)of being a very typical deeply closeted English Machiavellian. I mean he has no problem with the republicanism of the American colonies, in part because they posed no military threat nor could they credibly affect the Balance of Power in Europe. When the Sans Culottes went marching in the streets howling for blood and dynamite, well that was a threat to British Policy now wasn't it? But being English and desperate for an appeal to History Burke sits down and composes a long detailed lugubrious justification for his own beliefs. Mostly the book seems to reek of keeping England's options wide open, all this indignant palaver about churchly expropriations was just so much eyewash really. WHERE was all this bleeding heart concern for the seized monasteries of France when England was expropriating the Catholic Church outirght all over Ireland from the Imperial High Noon of the Tudors down to the beer garden days of the House of Hanover and beyond? In some ways, England had itself already seized and redistributed hundreds of thousands of acres of prime arable real estate during the reformation...Burke's excuses for these expropriations are particularly feeble, self serving and well, Machiavellian. Burke was after all a rather stuffy reformer in England, his main complaint about the French Revolution is that reform at a certain point was no longer an elite exercise, it fell into the hands of the demagogues in the National Assembly and pfft, Edmund was overboard with nary a word. But I give him credit he was a conservative because he could conceptualize something really worthy conserving, the Protestant Monarchy, the Rotten Boroughs of Parliament, the Puritan merchant class and the ever self renewing English Aristocracy. He was the first serious English Speaking Intellectual to make a special target of contempt out of his fellow intellectuals, he loved the past and did not fear the future since he assumed that it would be pretty much a iteration of what had come before. HE loved his elites and expected them to rule because they deserved to rule anything else was anarchy...and anarchy was Bad for Britain to be sure. Burke stands in marked contrast to today's American Conservative who literally wants to move into the past and somehow seal up all access to the future in the bargain, a "retreat into stupidity" to quote Orwell. I wonder what Burke would have made of a the anarchic mutterings of a Sean Hannity?

Congrats to Senator Pat Leahy (D VT)

who has become President Pro Tempore of the US Senate in the unfortunate death of Hawaii's own Dan Inouye. It is a largely ceremonial job notable in a constitutional context for being fourth in line to the US Presidency per the 1947 Presidential Succession Act. Me personally I think it is long past due to revisit that particular statute. The problem is, succession initially passes thru the elected officers of both houses of congress...and most of the time that means the opposition, the losers in the last presidential election have a place at the table in the event of a "double vacancy" in the Executive Department. Prior to 1947, succession passed thru the Cabinet sans demure with the Secretary of State third in line and this during an era when there was no constitutional mechanism for replacing a vice presidential vacancy. Alas in 1947, Harry Truman decided the Presidency had to pass to someone who could claim some type of an electoral mandate and the GOP, then in control of congress wanted a place in the line of succession hence the current succession act. Y'know the Founding Fathers had a horror of de-legitimization and or factional chaos, originally they mandated that the runner up in the Presidential contest became VP...well that didn't last eight years as it meant the opposition decredited and all, inherited the second office in the land no matter what. They got rid of that little notion plenty quick and thus enshired in the constitution they notion that Presidential Succession should not invalidate or over-ride the outcome of the last US election. At least that was the case broqadly speaking until 1947 which implemented the current scheme which promises us needless chaos and bitterness should the unthinkable happen. I say repeal the captioned act, and restore line of succession to the Cabinet Officers starting with the Secretary of State and then the Secretary of Defense on down...with the House Speaker and the President Pro Tem coming ion dead last. I don't offer that as a rebuke to either House, I merely which to preserve in a larger sense the "will of the people" and the legitimacy of the Presidency....

It is important to remember

that but for Adam Lanza's suicide last Friday amidst all his homicidal carnage at Sandy Hook Elementary and we would likely be mired in a frenzied debate about the Death Penalty and utility of hanging the crazy. *** Ah but from the looks of things, the Son of a Bitch had to stop and reload....

My Heart Goes Out

to any parents out there that had to send a scared and bewildered child to school today.

And as of this morning

Something like eight members of the Massachusetts Congressional Delegation woke up, read this news item, shaved themselves of so closely, looked into the mirror and saw A Future Junior Senator From Massachusetts staring back at them. And one of those guys is already a US Senator! And the punchline? None of them are ready for the job! *** Well it is clear, none of Humble Elias' protestations carry much weight with Senior Senator from Massachusetts, so much for the All Powerful Liberal Media Eh?? *** So if it comes down to yet another Special Election at the very least we will have some sense of Scott Brown's playbook and tactics having run against him quite literally three times in less than three years! And if we wanna retain this seat, we need to dream on first time outside-the-box candidate with some fundraising reach and a punchy message/biography...just remember Martha Coakley the incumbent State Attorney General could not beat Scott Brown, but first time candidate Elizabeth Warren did. There is a lesson in that, Scott ran twice as a blurry family friendly ideological nullity and foundered badly when Warren started drawing up stark battle lines on pocketbook issues. That whole "Indian Thing" didn't help either, rattled on a month too long as well. So if we wanna beat him again, the first and most important step is to take him seriously! So given all that, once last hopeless time I do repeat, JOHN DON'T DO IT!

John Don't Do It...

Looks like JK is about to be offered Foggy Bottom. I am under no illusions here, nobody reads The Chimes At Midnight, nonetheless duty compels me One Last Time to assert that the loss of John Kerry's leadership as Senior Senator from Massachusetts would be a tragedy for the Commonwealth. We have lost Edward Maximus and are already on our third Junior Senator from Massachusetts, this is a time for continuity, for statesmanship, for leadership...this is a time to Stand By The Commonwealth. Don't do it John please. For Every George Catlett Marshall there is a Dean Rusk on the flipside...Remember that Senator. This state is sadly rife with cynical bastards that are slavering at the prospect of a special senatorial election do not gratify them Senator Kerry, they are undeserving of such a boon! Don't Do It John, please. Elias N.

I started out life in the "Riot Age"

and have lived long enough to see the dawn of the Age of School Massacres, from College to High School to Middle School now this horrific slaughter in Connecticut. *** I've said it before and I will say it again, if you are dissasociated and prone to violence in this country, you will find your way to a firearm far easier than you find your way to a psychiatrist. *** As for What Is To Be Done don't look at me, likely we aren't even gonna talk about gun control at this point, it is a policy that is pretty much off the table for good...even if such measures could address the sheer size of the US gun population which of course, they cannot. *** Well...if we aren't gonna debate gun control in the USA then maybe we ought to talk about allocating more money for "lunatic control", y'know more trained psychiatrists in the schools, better staff at mental hospitals with tighter security measures therein. Something to think about since gun control is so unthinkable and hence undiscussable. *** Looking forward to all the dumb things the gun worshippers will be saying this weekend and going forward, and that gabble is sad to say, the extent of the debate we will get on gun violence in the USA. *** The worst thing about this massacre in Connecticut is that was perpetrated on elementary school students, the most easily traumatized cohort by far. Except this time, they really have some to fear. Peace to the departed Succor unto the living....

A "Mistrial"

just doesn't scream "vindication" to Humble Elias. But then again this IS Massachusetts and the bar is set low for these sorts of things, hence ex State Treasurer Tim Cahill's loopy ass grin on the front page of the Globe today. Alas the charges were originally leveled by GOP gubernatorial candidate Charlie Baker and so given the vague nature of the statute in question what the hell could Martha Coakley do but seek an indictment and trial? I think if we are serious about public corruption (and we all should be) better sharper laws are needed. It'll be interesting to see what lessons are learned from the Cahill Trial on Beacon Hill going forward, likely it'll be the wrong ones to be sure. Meanwhile IF a broken down has been like Bill Weld can get puffed up for upcoming senatorial/gubernatorial contests...shee-it why not Tim C. "He is tanned, rested, ready and he beat the rap!"

"Once more unto the breach dear friends..."

I sometimes am given to think that if a small child chanced to ask Scot Lehigh for the sum of two plus two, the Boston Globe columnist would immediately reply "William Weld!" Case in point today's column otherwise a clumsy leak by the former Governor to the effect that he is Baaa-ack in Massachusetts after a prolonged bender in the upper west side of NYC and available for public office if anyone is y'know interested. You can practically hear Lehigh's sigh of relief thru the newsprint. The Former Governor has still got this inexplicable hold on the imaginations of many many Boston columnists, Scot Lehigh most of all. Mind you, Lehigh is only half joking about Weld's notional return to state politics, his other half clearly earnestly wishes Bill would pile in soonest. For truly, Weld's supposed return allows his partisans on the Op-Ed page to cease contemplating the ominous future of Newsprint and pretend that is once again the golden summer of 1993 and Bill Weld is standing like Horatio at the Gates against the hordes of a democratic state legislature. It is an attitude formation that strongly suggests Orwell's fabled "retreat into Stupidity", but there you have it, the mere mention of Bill Weld's name brings it out in local opinion leaders. Never mind the fact that Weld ABANDONED this state as completely as did Mitt Romney, and for reasons even more trivial that Willard hald crazed lust for the presidency, ambition I can understand, Weld left BECAUSE HE WAS BORED! He couldn't make any purchase against Billy Bulger, his brother Whitey or for that fact John Kerry and so, stricken with ennui he resigned and flamed out in the US Senate trying to become Ambassador to Mexico.... Since then nothing but many many convivial cocktail hours a brief inept flirtation with New York Politics and then...the existential blight that attends on divorced WASPs of a certain vintage. And if Bill Weld is bored once again with the life of a Brahmin corporate lawyer will someone please tell him to write a novel or take to the variety stage or maybe start sampling some of Berkshire Mountain Distillery's corn whiskey....anything please but public office we are under no obligation to enable Bill Weld because he cannot entertain himself quietly outside the public expense.

The Decline and Fall of WTKK 96.9 FM Wingnut Spew....

Whoah... The Herald is trafficking in rumors that WTKK FM Talk (famously local platform for Falangist yakkers like Michael Graham) is gonna undergo a format change to...music. Apparently that golden 18 thru 24 demographic isn't enticed by bitter old lags screeching "Benghazi" into the microphones all day long...I mean like who knew?? Oh Ghod I may need to hire Harvard Stadium in which to guffaw...You mean Michael Graham will have to go out and get a real job? He might even end up ON WELFARE!!!! Disgraceful! Oh and poor bloated Howie Carr frittering away his ironclad contract at WRKO, if this rumor is true he will NEVER achieve his dream of being the morning man on WTKK... I shouldn't make fun of Howie, he is so bloated and sickly looking that TPTB at WTKK probably didn't think the columnist a good actuarial bet and took a second look at Justin Bieber's muzik as a consequence... Good lord supplanted by robo-dj's playing synthe-pop songs, its like a Phillip K. Dick novel over at WTKK except no one is gonna drop the H-bomb and thus put wingnut radio out of it's existential misery.

"A Broad General View of Things..."

The Supreme Court is gonna take up the issue of same sex marriage? Whoo boy...batten down the hatches kids this is gonna be a good one. There are two Supreme Courts at war here, the nice broadminded five to four line up that validated HCR about a year ago...or the assholes who foisted President Bush Jr on us. Which court will show up? Who can say? All I do know is that there are just enough vengeful wingnut ideological warriors on the Supreme Court, people just desperate to punch some liberal or liberal cause in the nose, to give me a distinct sense of unease. Ah but that is the mocking dilemma for a nice white suburban liberal like myself, I don't recognize the right of the legislature to restrict freedom of marriage nor do I trust the highest court in the land to interpret the constitution in a "fair and balanced" fashion. Like I said, batten down the hatches....

Sick Day

I'm sick of blogging in other words, will need to take a day here...

The Fiscal Cliff...

A lot of palaver is out there right now about a historic deal between the White House and Congress with respect to higher taxes and public spending. Otherwise a whole bunch of pior mandated spending cuts will be triggered on the New Year that'll slow the recovery to a crawl...and this is hardly a galloping recovery so far. I have no doubt there will be a deal, the real question is, can Speaker John Boehner carry his own caucus? Experience teaches us that it may not be possible for Boehner to do so, he talks tough to the White House when the cameras are rolling, but shows no aptitude for getting Tea Partei freaks to toe the line or even keep their word. This is largely a function of nationwide wholsale GOP social engineering in the form of relentless US House gerrymandering that have created a core cadre of political fantasylands that pundits naively call "safe seats". These aree places artfully drawn to the advantage of older angrier voters who elecct very angry hypocritical men to office whow have no mandate other than to reject the current resident of the White House. So compromise under such conditions seems like a pretty dicy proposition. Nonetheless I do think a compromise will be negotiated probably at the last minute and rejected by Boehner's House at the last minute as well. I think the President is doing a masterful job to holding the GOP's feet to the fire, I also think a good chunk of the opposition would see their legs burned off at the knees before they dickered with Barack Obama. Sorry but as liberals and or bloggers or ideological warriors like Humble Elias I think our chief duty right now is to confront sequestration and turn it to the nation's advantage... As to how to do that, waaal you should find a smarter blogger than Humble Elias....

Jim DeMint is leaving the US Senate

For a cush job at the Heritage Foundation. I guess he figures on collecting some easy ass conservtive welfare before running for President in 2016 as a "fresh new Washington Outsider". No doubt he will ring some Tea Party style to that August Think Tank...which can be summarized as "who you hate is important". So at last if DeMint makes the 2016 race and if he get nominated, we will at last see free and clear the final show down between demography and reactionary demagoguery....THAT at least will be interesting to watch.

Carmen Ortiz for Governor?

Geez Governor Patrick sure knows how to stir shit up don't he?? He dropped the US Attorney's name as a gubernatorial candidate at a state house conference with the House Speaker and the Senate President....aaaand PRESTO instant candidate! Gotta break this down from Deval Patrick's perspective....if he was gonna design an insurgent outsider as a democratic candidate one with some marquee potential to hold together the Patrick-Obama coalition (the one that just decked Scott Brown), one who had never run statewide (important advantage in a gubernatorial race in this State) and someone from outside local democratic politics...well he'd be probably come up with Carmen Ortiz. Oh course this not good news for Lt. Governor Murray whose current political woes can be overcome, but it requires Harry Truman's guts and little of Dick Nixon's deviousness...I have my doubts that Tim Murray can punch above his weight in this division. There are some solid caveats here though, is Ortiz even interested in making the race? Can she fundraise? Does she have the rhetorical component to present her views in a cogent and compelling fashion? Is theere still a glass ceiling in GUBERNATORIAL politics and is the stat ready for another female aspirant for the corner office? What sort of a platform would Ortiz run on? Questions abound off of this notion which is just want Patrick probably wants this afternoon, get a lot of people talking incite a few columnistas...get dopes like me to post shit on the internet. It never fails, hell I'll go for it every time it's either this or I slag Jim DeMint as a shitkicker Roundhead. Tomorrow? I denounce Jim DeMint of course. :D

Liz needs $400K....

Apparently all those volunteers worked up a seriously appetite workin' da precincts for our new Junior Senator Elect last month, Citizen Warren owes food vendors four hundred thousand clams. Yipes! Thats a lot of dough to a US Senator who can't just shake down Wall Street to cover the overage... I knew I shouldn't have deleted that email last night...I just figured it was a list of her post election appearances, who knew she needed to fundraise?

Nerve Gas...

So now the Supreme Opthamalocrat of Syria proposes to win his Civil War by dropping nerve gas on the rebels?? THAT is this D-Bag's big plan? To pull a Saddam while the whole world watches? I can't think of anything that would bring down NATO intervention quicker, and in that lies the downfall of the House of Assad for sure. At the very least it means a No Fly Zone since the Regime is conjuring with air dropped nerve gas weapons. Good Lord does this dope even listen? Bin Laden was laughing right up until the SEALS ventilated his skull and Khadaffi thought he could defy the world until NATOs fighter jets started screaming over head. Granted it is a regional tradition for regimes to slaughter their way to a majority...but nerve gas is a weapon of mass destruction, its a game changer...and one that rarely works in favor of those in power in the Middle East. I have a suspicion though, maybe it is nothing more than a malign hope, that all this nerve gas palaver is a way to bid up on Assad's exit from Syrian..."Free passage to Moscow and access to my Swiss Bank Accounts or I start nerve gassing the polity!" Given that violent threats are themselves a hallmark of serious diplomacy...this could be a sort of exit strategy, albeit a nasty and possibly genocidal strategy to be sure.

Mike Bloomberg, the Mayor of NYC...

for some perverse reason, wants Secretary of State Hilary Clinton to run for Mayor as his anointed successor in 2013. Apparently this was serious enough to warrant a polite decline from the Secretary of State in a recent phone conversation. This is just plain wacky.... On the other hand were Mayor Menino to step down in 2013, I do think Bill Clinton would make a dandy candidate for Mayor of Boston....tanned, rested, ready and in fine voice as well. I can't imagine a better candidate to transcend the factions that abound in Boston Politics....

I don't do this too often

but "Christopher" over at the Blue Mass Group seems to think we need not fear a revival in Scott Brown's political fortunes. Granted this is all speculative, Senator Kerry has neither confirmed no denied any offer of a cabinet post which or may not come his way...and the 2014 Gubernatorial palaver stands in suspension til this issue is resolved as well. Nonetheless I do think we dismiss Brown at our peril, he is only other republican (other than Romney) who has successfully run statewide in the past ten years. He has a good strong fundraising base, he is young energetic and in the end he is all the state GOP has at this point. At the very least Scott Brown has proven he can thread the needle in a special election, he seems to have less success in a general election environment which is one of the reasons why I wish to deny him his favored gambit and force him to wait either on a contested GOP gubernatorial primary or a wide open shot at the senate. Scott Brown doesn't regard his loss last month as final, so we should not either, attitude is destiny mah frenz.

The War on Christmas has Commenced...

Anyone who publicly plays Frank Sinatra's version of the standard Christmas Carols obviously hates Christmas on a very basic level. Frank was an able vocalist, but his version of musical holiday cheer is vaguely suggetive of a hostage tape. Sinatra sings "Jingle Bells" like he has a pistol put to his head. Remember that whenever Fox News starts up with its annual "War of Christmas" nonsense, the holiday has been in some ways under attack for years by the very people trying to celebrate it.

There is talk in DC of

"arming the Syrian Rebels" as a means to effect the ouster of the Supreme Opthamalocrat in Damascus. I can't think of a worse idea, it was bad when Mitt Romney proposed it back in October, and if anything it is worse one now. We cannot arm a bunch of irregular Arab militias who share a border of Israel and expect any good to come of the transaction. It was one thing to arm the Libyan fighters and establish a no-fly zone, that was a completely different geostrategic situation, Libya doesn't abut Israel and or the West Bank/Gaza. The furthest I'd be prepared to go in Syrian is to establish a no-fly zone under NATO auspices. Turkey is a NATO member and shares a border with Syrian we have to keep this a NATO centered operation. I am no friend of Assad and his corrupt murderous crew...but owing to proximity to Israel and the potential involvement of Turkey in this whole mess, we must needs proceed with caution. Just one more thought, does John Kerry really wanna wade into this mess? A veritable American Metternich would find the current situation daunting. Just sayin' thass all.