The Boston Globe is musing

that somehow Boston Mayor Marty Walsh's political cred was compromised by his on-and-off again thing for the defunct Olympics Bid. I don't think there is any downside to making The Right Decision, however long or by what route Mayor Walsh to got to said decision...The Globe doesn't get that because in it's institutional heart and soul they wanted the Olympics and couldn't care less the burden on the taxpayers, residents and commuters who'd have to put up with the damn thing. The Globe doesn't get that, clearly they are still stuck in a political social model where "community leaders" make huge decisions and private and then kid the public into acceptance passive or otherwise. It doesn't work like that anymore, thanks to social media we are all present and accounted for in real time to the big debate. And take it for me, this is pretty much a victory for the Little Guy over Big Money, I don't care how provincial it makes us look to Morrissey Blvd and clearly Mayor Walsh didn't give a rat's ass either when push came to shove. That is all the electorate cares about, results...everything else is snarky "inside baseball" of interest only to Boston Globe columnists who'll have to find something else to write about during the slow news months.

A couple of days ago...

The Reverend Mike Huckabee GOP Presidential Candidate asserted that the proposed Nuclear Agreement with Iran was tantamount to leading the State of Israel "to the doors of the oven". Rhetorical overkill? Sure... A Feckless Attempt to Outrant Trump? Assuredly Another failure of leadership in the GOP? Maybe Not. I could I suppose snark on about "the lack of grown ups" in the GOP who might restrain the Reverend's vituperative cataract....but lets face it, the leader's are a perfect reflection of the base and the GOP base is the problem. The base of the republican party has become intellectually corrupt to a profound and is also addicted in the psychological sense of the term to vicious authoritarian rhetoric. and like all addicts the Base needs bigger and badder doses in order to get off....Hence Trump and now Huckabee soon the whole sordid miserable rabble will be both escalating and enabling a sick degraded addicted base. If you don't believe me, consider the case of Mike Huckabee he was once, "approachable" maybe he couldn't be persuaded but he was at least willing to debate. Famously in 2008 he claimed to be a conservative who was not "mad at anyone"....now look at him blustery angry righteous, a ranter amidst ranters. This is what eight years of slavishly catering to the debauched vengeful whims of the Fox News viewership does to a Man's self respect, its made Huckabee into a humorless enabler. The rot it seems spreads from The Bottom Upwards. So what we have here is not a Leadership Crisis, its really a "followership" crisis....and it's a bad one that will get worse as we rattle on towards 2016.

Whoops!

The Power of Money in this town just got blown right out of the water.... I take it back, Boston 2024 is finished! And thank ghod too! This is a humiliating setback for the local Overclass who'd been accustomed to getting their own way for far too long....a "Market Basket" class setback to be sure. And Kudos to Marty Walsh for dropping the hammer on this shit after certain amount of dithering...I'm rotten glad he spoke up, someone had to do it Governor Baker wasn't exactly a Profile in Courage on this one to be sure.

Wow....

I think Boston Mayor Marty Walsh may have just busted Boston2024 in the head with a business end of a shovel.... In essence he just told a press conference that based on what he has seen so far he could not sign off on any financial guarantees to the USOC/Boston2024. Now that is not a ringing call to Pile The Bodies Up on the Battlements in a last stand to Stop The Olympics....but it's pretty indicative that the data and plans so far aren't beguiling the Mayor. And if they can't carry the Mayor along with them, then Boston2024 is in big trouble. Keep in mind Boston is the very last bastion of a "strong mayor" system, even the studied & qualified neutrality of City Hall can pretty much doom the whole damn project. Now I am really really curious as to where Charlie Baker is gonna land on this thing, right now given his money worshipping moderate GOP pose I'd always scored him as Pro Olympics at the end of the day. But then again, Charlie's first priority is reelection and a fight with City Hall over something as ephemeral as the Summer Olympics is not gonna help Baker towards that goal. So as I've said before our best hope in the "Anti-Olympics" camp is that the Governor feels nervous about the purely electoral impact whole proposal to back off however passive aggressively and hope the IOC takes the hint. In short we are counting on Charlie Baker's cowardice to save the day. *** On the other hand (because "no art form tracks it's own opposite" to quote Lenny Bruce), this has always been a town where Big Money Gets What It Wants and this is definitely a project that the monied classes just seem to love to death. But so far I have to score this heavily in favor of the antis, they've debated better they've used their resources better and imposed a heavy burden of proof on Boston2024....so far anyway.

In Case You Haven't Heard....

(amidst what I like to call "This Summer's Trump Din"), Jeb Bush's answer To All Our Problems is to "phase out" Medicare in favor of a Ryanesque system of vouchers. So yeah campaign 2016 is likely gonna be yet another debate within the GOP over whether to shoot Social Security in the Head or simple hygienically hang the whole program with a noose. I must say one of the unifying wingnut bona fides of the Bush Offspring is their nasty wheedling cajoling attempts to end Social Security

Ohio Governor John Kasich is running for President...

His current round of television commercials assert that he is qualified for High Office on grounds that his father was a much beloved Mailman. *** Yeah I know it's all about relatability and a comforting soft sell and evoking either a phantom sense of anesthetized monochromatic community or else imminent peril...there are but two campaign themes in the GOP after all. I'd rant on about the vacuity of it all except Sinclair Lewis nailed it in 1920 in his novel "Main Street" with it's "oratorical references to Pep, Punch, Go, Vigor, Senator Knute Nelson, Alien Agitators That Threaten Our American Way of Life, Manly Men, Womanly Women and Pointing With Pride".

Donald Trump...

refuses to rule out a third party candidacy for the US Presidency. Hmmmm.... I think, he is just playing hardball with the rest of the GOP warning them to "back off". I myself don't think Trump is serious about the third party run simply because I don't believe he is serious about running for the GOP nomination. I strongly doubt he has the stamina for the long haul nor (as I've said before) can he stand up to a serious intensive opposition research based investigation. Sheee-it the man generates nothing but opposition research every time he gives a speech. Like Sarah Palin (whose act he seems to have appropriated wholesale) the man is a "sugar high" and those sorts of candidates never last...

Say what you like....

But John Kerry is a Grown-Ass Man. Faced with bitter insults aimed at his friend Senator John McCain from GOP Presidential Clowndidate Donald Trump, John Kerry Manned Up and pushed back on The Donald Hard. McCain, as I've noted before has hardly been a strong supporter of Secretary of State but that matters little to John Kerry when its a Question of Honor. John Kerry is a Better Patriot and a Better Man than any ten like Donald Trump...I can pay Our Former Senator no higher compliment.

Texas is allegedly no longer

issuing birth certificates to the US Born offspring of illegal immigrants, this is of course in direct contravention of the United States Constitution. Its also a petty spiteful bullying act, something undertaken with the full truculent knowledge that the decision will be overturned by court order....so now Texas has to be instructed by a Federal Judge to abide by the goddamned law. As I said, gruesome and beneath Texas' dignity as a big state with a big heart....Lyndon Johnson is spinning in his grave. Moreover if Texas isn't issuing birth certificates to infant children, isn't akin to saying the babies don't exist and were never born? Isn't this a sort of "administrative abortion" by State Fiat??? Does no one else SEE THIS??? And why then hasn't The Family Research Council Called in B-52 Airstrikes????

Plutography....

Now this, The New Horizon Spacecraft's photos of the demi-planet Pluto some three billion miles away, is an achievement!! A National Achievement, something of consequence to a free people with a commitment to The Wonders of Science. Look at that picture up there, that is the very definition of money well spent despite congress' decades long commitment to short funding NASA. If someone wants to do something for The Country, spurn productivity, keep the USA pressing the frontiers of science a little bit more funding for NASA might be a good start...

Peace.....Maybe

I actually don't have transformative hopes derived of the Good News From Out Vienna this morning. At best the current nuclear agreement with Iran will head off (temporarily let us remember) a disastrous nuclear arms race in the region and possibly just possibly empower the sectors of Iranian society that do not see themselves as Allah's Cannon Fodder. More than that seems utopian for a region that is a mortuary for High Hopes. The basic policy of the USA in the region remains the same, our powder is dry and our word is good. So with that in mind the really edifying part of the story will be listening to a bunch of cowardly in the rear with the gear ChickenHawk republicans scream "Appeasement" and "Munich" at the top of their lungs. That much will be fun for a little while at least....

I still say...

Donald Trump is a "sugar high". Yes he has a visceral appeal to the much emaciated "grievance wing" of the GOP Base...but these type of blusterers always look like Godzilla the summer before the nominating conventions. As we get closer to the primaries, the dynamics shift and Trump has never run for public office before and he has a arrogant personality and no internal governor whatsoever. That won't wear well over time and the GOP convention is still over a year away. Herman Cain and Alan Cranston both looked good at this point in their respective games, remember that. Meanwhile, I maintain that so far the candidate that truly benefits is...Jeb Bush all Trump's bluster gives the former Governor of Florida a priceless chance to track back to the center at low cost and without compromising his conservative bona fides, I mean La Famiglia Arbusto excels at defending puppies, kitties and wives. Moreover Trumpmentum, is a net loss for Scott Walker he has been pushed right off the front page just as he is about to finally announce for President. Moreover...does anyone out there really think Donald Trump can stand up to a serious opposition research review? The kind the Bush Family will sic on him? His marriages, his divorces, his deals, his bankruptcies, his aggrieved former partners, his alleged extramarital affairs, and no one in this republic can be that rich and build all that AND NOT hire cheap illegal immigrant labor.... Remember that...

The FBI might have eff'd up

Dylan Roof's firearms background check but lets not forget that the N.R.A. first convinced Roof that he NEEDED a firearm, his rights and personal safety depended on carrying that firearm AT ALL TIMES and that without it nameless hostile forces would kill him assuming they didn't attend to disarm him first by legislative fiat. Given that malign line of reasoning is it any wonder Dylan Roof selected a cohort least likely to return fire and then opted to shoot first? *** This is the real argument, why is it so damn important for the demonstrably paranoid Dylan Roof's of the world to be armed, permitted to strut around so armed and jacked up to the gills on inflammatory rubbish? But trust me that is one debate they will never have in South Carolina....glad they took down that wretched flag but that is mere symbolism which is all we are capable of these days so it seems.

Apparently the current budget

just passed on Beacon Hill grants the Governor expanded powers to explore privatization options at the MBTA. Oh...Yay. No for nothing but Keolis the much heralded contractor that administers the commuter rail system didn't exactly cover itself with glory this winter, in no wise did it outperform the MBTA. But sadly this is a state with a taste for homeopathic politics a stronger dose of what didn't work before will almost always cure the affliction or so goes Charlie Baker's thesis. Otherwise "privatization" is one of those words that will undoubtedly spark the unctuous condescending interest of pundits like Scot Lehigh over at the Boston Globe who is always looking for a rhetorical shiv to run between the ribs of public sector unions. As policy it likely won't deliver (other than an excuse not to spend the money) but as politics it likely has limitless potential to burnish Baker's cred as a moderate republican supermanager. Just remember that was Bobby Jindal's trip before the Xian Spirits of the Air got into him.....

Greece Votes No....

to another austerity package payout courtesy the European Union. I want to caveat my remarks tonight by freely admitting that I am not an economist. And a long series of policy mistakes had to be made by Greek Authorities to put that venerable democracy in it's present perilous state. That having been said, no democracy may long sustain itself carrying a 25% unemployment rate. Such jobless tallies are an open invitation to revolution and dictatorship, at the moment that is whats on the line here, the survival of Greece as a brother democracy. Forget all the money allegedly owned and the austerity measures that came with the loan right now ...either someone in Athens or Brussels or wherever starts figuring out how to cut unemployment in Greece to manageable levels quickly or the whole shit house is gonna go up in flaming chunks. The Greeks are down to the question of survival all this macroeconomic stuff is fine but politics is destiny and right now I wonder if anyone in the EU gets that? Because the broad sweep of the conditions in Greece parallel the Weimar Republic circa 1932 or so, as I said economics isn't my tipple but history sure is....

Bereft of a position where he can $wap favors with Wall Street

Former US Senator Scott Brown has gone back on conservative welfare having resumed his commentator gig with Fox News and now is hawking dubious weight loss supplements on Facebook. I mean the grinning dumbass couldn't even score a soft touch gig as a visiting fellow at the "New Hampshire Institute of Politics" at Saint Anselm College which I'm told is a sort of Assisted Living Facility for washed up Granite State Politicians... Geez they really take that carpetbagger" stuff seriously up there don't they?

For the moment I'm scoring Charlie Baker as a

squish on the subject of the Olympics. Oh don't get me wrong if the pro-game percentages were just a wee bit better he'd be banging the pots in the streets for the Olympics, but at the moment public opinion seems to restrain him. Although I suspect that in his heart of hearts he'd love to get behind the IOC bid, it's the just the sort of "innovative public private partner$hip that moderate republicans love, tax cuts galore and the tax payer doesn't get officially screwed until the Governor himself is long out of office. Moreover Joh Henry, owner of the Red Sox, The Boston Globe, Liverpool United and pumper of moderate republicanism would allegedly dearly love to get a soccer stadium in Boston as long as he doesn't have to pay for it. The IOC Bid will supposedly get Messr Henry his stadium, so there is that to consider as the governor mulls over and over and over his options. My gut is, Baker will come around on the Olympics sooner or later, thats a lot of Big Money Men on that committee and the few surviving moderate republicans out there have historically been great respecters of money although the polling could nose dive...if it doesn't this could turn into Baker versus Walsh. So far neither man has a natural advantage.