I'm Calling It Folks...

Clearly The Senior Senator from Massachusetts neither heeds nor reads this..."The Little Blog That Cried".
We begged her not to run for President, but nevertheless she persisted on that one as well.
The only good news here is that likely she'll empty the local fundraising pool completely inside a few months and dissuade Representatives Moulton & Kennedy from any wan hope of piling into the presidential primaries.
Deval Patrick at least, has already come to his senses.
***
My only advise to Senator Warren is to keep her language plain, coherent and even a bit salty, focus relentlessly on the economic inequality, constantly stress that want respects neither gender nor color.  Get ready for a shit ton of Indian war-whoops and attacks from that angle (some of which will come from Native Americans count on it), but you've stated your case on that matter so classify it as a distraction and stay focused on income inequality and the decline of the Middle Class...frankly that is your only hope.

"Live Free or Die...Just Don't Try...To Get High"

NH Governor Chris Sununu has engaged the $ervices of one Kevin Sabet who fronts something called "Smart Approaches to Marijuana" to lobby the Granite State against legalizing marijuana.  There is a bill pending in the NH State Legislature and the regional trend is towards decriminalization and or outright legalization...so there is a lot on the line for Sununu, whose mind is stuck in the mid 1980's "just say no" era.
I myself just find it plainly hilarious whenever The Granite State cannot live up to it's utopian libertarian fantasies which seems to happen with mirthful regularity these days.
This is the same New Hampshire that practically promotes driving while intoxicated by putting their Massive State Liquor Stores next to all major highways leading into and out of the State itself.
The fact that yet another member of Sununu Family (the perpetually stale poster boys for Torpid Dynastic Entitlement) is in on this "campaign" is itself just the Crowning Touch. Clan Sununu has had but one idea in fifty years; make State Government as Small and as Burdensome as Possible.
I just wanna know how much Sabet is raking in to keep pot illegal, untaxed and unregulated in New Hampshire??  I'll bet its a bundle, and I wonder where that money is coming from?  Tax dollars I'm sure..."The Government is Best that Governs the Worst".

Careful Donald...

Don't boast in front of the  the troops about phantom pay raises , that never works out well, you can send them to die in some hell hole on a whim, but don't pay them in promises.

The Emperor Nero's successor, aged indolent Galba tried to shortchange the frontier troops and the praetorians and he ended up diced up like hamburger by his own bodyguards...pay heed (like that is ever gonna happen...)

Merry Christmas...

The Stock Market is collapsing....and all the President can do is emit irrational tweets and belch hollow threats.  Given that he is seemingly alone in the White House with no competent authority around him to curb his worst impulses...I say it all becomes Steve Mnuchin's fault by Thursday. I am not sure the Treasury Secretary will last until New Years, its always someone else's fault in Trump's fevered mind.
Like the late ReichsMarshal Hermann Goering, Trump excels at setting "Reichstag Fires", unlike the Late Luftwaffe Chief, Trump also excels at getting caught red handed amidst his own pyromania. Normally when an Authoritarian indulges this much destructive chaos, its in order to consolidate power in due course, but fundamentally, Trump is a low mentality pyromaniac, he is too dull witted and easily distracted to take advantage of his destructive impulses...
For which we can breath a tiny sigh of relief...for now.

Its not that I thought all that much of James Mattis

he was a reactionary on his best day and likely no great fan on gender equality among numerous other things.
But he wasn't crazy...and more importantly he wasn't the compliant alleged pawn of a hostile foreign power.
And on no more than those two negatives alone, General Mattis' departure from the Pentagon has all the trappings of impulsive blustery Kaiser Wilhelm II dismissing Otto von Bismarck from the German Chancellery...

Seth Moulton comes to his Senses..

And announces he is not going to challenge Ed Markey for the Senate Nomination in 2020.

Well, thats good news, but it doesn't give us much indication as to Mouton's next move politically.  If he stays in the US House he probably needs to patch things up with Speaker Designate Nancy Pelosi, who so far seems to have picked off most of his insurgent backers without having to come to terms with Moulton himself.  Moreover, he may have to fend off a primary challenge of his own in 2020, likely an ambitious female on the Ayanna Pressley who'll be the distaff embodiment of Mouton's mantra "only by challenge, shall I rise".
Or he could run for President, but literally that depends on Warren not running for President in 2020, and that seems very unlikely.
Lastly The Congressman could want to run for Governor in 2022, that however depends on Baker stepping down after two terms. If Baker does vacate the corner office it's got to look like a competitive race against Karyn Polito in the General Election.  The prime attractant under this scenario is the Bay State's lingering sexism might work in Moulton's favor in a two way match up against the Lt. Governor, said sexism is simply washed in a Polito v. Healey contest.
So may shards ashift in the kaleidoscope...

Theresa May Lives Another Day...

The British PM survives a No Confidence Vote within her own Parliamentary Caucus, she got 63% of the vote but had to promise to stand down as PM before the next election which is more or less a pledge to commit political suicide over Brexit.
I have to hand it to her, she is unparalleled in the rat-like desperate arts of political survival, time after time her bell is seemingly rung and yet May abides as PM.  This is in part because no one else wants their fingerprints on the Mess that is Brexit, if it goes to smash next March (and it will) the only thing that unites the factions in the UK is that they want it all blamed on Theresa May.
Childish I know, but this is the mentality that festers whenever a bad policy is being foisted on a resistant majority by a relentless unempowered minority.  Put it another way, Theresa May and most of her tories and a good chunk of labor as well, know Brexit is a bad idea, but no one wants to commit to the heavy political lifting necessary to overturn a referendum, something the Massachusetts State Legislature seems to do with Ease.

The Remnants of Dignity...

Not that I'm adding anything to the conversation, but the VP looked perfectly lifeless at the President's meeting with Senator Schemer & Congressperson Pelosi yesterday.  A lot of people are comparing him to the "Starring Role at a Wake" or have theorized about some sort of persistent upright coma...all of it hilarious.
I think he is overwhelmed and in shutdown mode, he is a rigid cheap less third rate politician, he knows enough to realize that the Admin is casually breaking the law, but he hasn't the character or the brains to do anything about it.  So...having no way forward or no way back he "retreats into stupidity"  (to quote Orwell) and thus sits there in the above photo in seeming suspended animation.

Congressman Mouton's Operation Valkyrie...

has pretty much ended in defeat, worse for him, there is crazy talk on the North Shore of a stiff female-centric primary challenge for him come 2020.  It seems clear that the PUMAs have their claws out for Seth Moulton, and that is a formidable faction within the State Democratic Party, one that Moulton antagonizes only at his peril.
Of course this is the season of "political conjuration" everyone is considering a primary challenge, or running for a higher office whether or not anything plays out is another matter. Right now everything is on an easy idealistic rhetorical level but soon enough cold hard facts intrude to harsh everyone's groove.
I just think its ironic, Moulton's Mantra is "only by challenge shall I rise", and now someone wants to test that, and challenge him.

JK is Out as Well...

For which I breath a sad sigh of relief.

Not that I don't think Kerry wouldn't make a Great President, he would, but then again my Dad's old hassock would make a better chief executive than Trump.  The Sun Set on The Commonwealth's Presidential Ambitions Years Ago, sadly no one got around to telling any of our politicians, from both parties!
But as long as the Boston Globe needs to fill up column space, names will be mentioned, campaigns conjured with, hopeless fantasies will be indulged, count on it.

But for those of you who cannot exist, save to live in hope of some phantom political apotheosis, I will merely note we've heard nothing definitive from Seth Moulton, Joe Kennedy or Jane "Jingle Money" Swift for that matter.

Oh Thank Ghod...

Deval Patrick has let common sense prevail and has decided not to run for President in 2020.  Of course, details are still sketchy as to why he isn't running, the simple explanation may be he doesn't have the "fire in the belly" or his family is firmly opposed...or maybe the early money & infrastructure is already committed to Senior Senator Elizabeth Warren.
Of course, Congresspersons Kennedy, Moulton and Former Secretary of State Kerry are all also being  touted as candidates, so there is no shortage of "Kamikaze Democrats" from The Bay State for anyone who wants to spend eighteen months Living in Hope.  I am assuming at the end of the day, John Kerry can't raise the money or build the campaign staff to make a credible challenge. Seth Moulton is all about challenge, but it has to be a winnable challenge to be worth the candle, I don't think Kennedy has ever been serious about running for President...yet, I am sure he is being told he must prove himself in a higher office before making his move.  That leaves Elizabeth Warren, who is at least, still "thinking it over".
Keep thinking about it Senator, please!
I think Patrick made the right call, he might have been competitive in Iowa and he could have stumped the living daylights out of New Hampshire...but he'd a gotten sandbagged badly in what I like to call "The Boston Globe Primary".  Cuz That Paper despite its enduring liberal reputation, does not make it easy on local democrats to run for President.  Granted they fear perhaps rightly so, accusations of bias, but boy howdy they really beat up John Kerry back in 2004, front page above the fold news every time he dropped in the polls up in NH, among many other vexing things.  I can recall a highly placed campaign volunteer explaining to me why Kerry was in first place in Iowa in the lead up to the caucuses she said "they don't read The Boston Globe in Des Moines".
Anyhow this is a decision on Patrick's Part that costs him nothing, and who knows, he could make an interesting Vice Presidential Prospect for the right Top Nominee looking to boost turnout in Urban Areas.

In Memoriam, G.H.W.B.

"This talk of sincerity, I confess, fatigues me. If the fellow was sincere, then so was P. T. Barnum."
H.L. Mencken, 1925

Let the record show, that if my youth was ruined by Ronald Reagan, then my adulthood was brought low by his successor, George Herbert Walker Bush, who died last night at the age of ninety four.
I have a curious flaw, like many of my tribe, I cannot forget a grudge, and if there was a politician against whom I've held a grudge for a long time, it is the First President Bush.
In that respect, he made a good target, patrician-seeming, incoherent on his best days, prone to bouts of indecision, given to hiring men who deserved solitary confinement to run his campaigns, he was indeed a mixture of irritating and unpleasant contradictions.
I will say this though, politics in the USA is sodden with lackeys, fawning obsequious persons who truckle on the mighty that they might trample on all below them (expl: Jared Kushner), the irony is, they rarely achieve power.  Bush Senior, blithely defied this conventional wisdom, blowing past the accumulated corruptions of the Reagan admin (including the vast impeachable offense that was, Iran-Contra), crushing Mike Dukakis in the general election and winning the White House in 1988.
No small achievement given the Republic's ongoing skepticism about Vice Presidents.
Bush must've felt wonderful when he first sat down in the Oval Office, entitled in extremis after years of political jobbery, ass kissing and borderline criminal acts on behalf of Richard Nixon, Jerry Ford and Ronald Reagan.
Indeed if Bush was "A Giant of a Man" its only by comparison to our current roster of pathetic wowsers.
Am I the only one who remember all those scare stories that eructated from the CIA when Bush was Director back in the mid seventies to the effect that the Soviets were running out of oil and were on the brink of blitzkrieging the Middle East?
His career in public service is littered with similar malign zaniness.
The man knew the ineffable zen of running distasteful errands for his bosses sans any questions whatsoever. If you were ever wondering how the hell a brainless jobber like Dan Quayle could become VP, just look to that value structure.
To read the lavish obituary in the Globe today, a veritable Moderate Republican Solon had passed from the scene, but let me ask you, from Clarence Thomas to his broken promises about taxes, exactly what did George Bush ever moderate??
"Win Ugly, Govern Ugly" was a dictum that I put forth back in 2000 when his son seized power, I can credit Junior with far more sincerity on this point. His father thought he could "win ugly" and do as he pleased even posing as a "kinder gentler" conservative (a formulation ever bit as big a joke as Dukakis' infamous tank ride...).
And then of course it all fell apart didn't it? The economy blew up in his face, the electorate forgot about Willy Horton and shoved Bill Clinton into the White House with an audible disaffected grunt.
But...peace to his ashes.
I do feel for his family, they must endure what passes for humane condolences from Donald Trump, no one great or obscure should suffer like that....

When Coups Fail...

normally, in other barbarous lands, people are stood up against a wall and shot.  Not here in the USA though, look at U.S. Representative Seth Moulton, his bid to unseat presumed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has seemingly failed ignominiously, and all he does is try to open some fruitless negotiations with the leadership while looking around for his next big political adventure.
This is hardly "Operation Valkyrie" mah frenz.
Well all I can say is that Seth Mouton's motto seems to be: "Only by Challenge, Shall I Rise", it is by challenge he unseated Tierney, it was by challenge he tried to overthrow Pelosi and whatever happens next it'll likely be a primary challenge here in the Commonwealth.
The question is, does he want to wait four years and take a flyer in the gubernatorial primary (assuming Charlie Baker is not on the ballot)?
Or Maybe he wants to run for President in 2020, that could be murky going since there are literally three other Massachusetts based candidates in play, I am assuming that like most politicians Moulton likes to avoid crowds, if he can.
Lastly and most dangerously he might bid on a primary challenge to Ed Markey in 2020, and this is where the nightmare scenario kicks in because Moulton might rough Ed up enough to make the Junior Senator easy pickings for a candidate like Charlie Baker (whose huge numbers two weeks ago might tempt him into a race where he can guarantee the advantage of incumbency to "Acting Governor Polito").  Either that, or Moulton displaces Markey for the senatorial nomination and thus ends up running against a tanned re$ted & ready Charlie Baker...a match up Moulton himself pointedly declined this year.
Seth, all I'm saying is, think about it, you could end up prolonging Charlie Baker's already morbidly repetitive political career....

John Kasich (remember him??)

is making forlorn noises about "challenging Trump" in 2020.  In his own way, he is just as deluded as the President, Kasich really thinks there is a Anti-Trump constituency within the GOP that can be activated during the presidential primaries.
I don't see it at all, pretty much the entire GOP has made a very bad Faustian Bargain with Donald Trump and only perhaps a truly botched international crisis or another recession will break it, and I doubt even then....
Its difficult to flank Trump on the right, because he's done such a good job of co-opting extremists, the argument has to be made on constitutional principles and our international commitments, none too popular planks come the South Carolina Primary.
I doubt Kasich will do it, for lack of courage, I strongly suspect he cannot raise the money and most of all, he is the sort of prissy politician that Trump eats for breakfast. In other words the President is good at beating up lame weaklings, and that is John Kasich in a nutshell.

No, reluctantly I am forced to the conclusion that only a serious well funded third party bid can deny Trump the votes and thwart him in the General Election. From the GOP, we can expect nothing.  Said 3rd Party Challenge will require a lot of money and credible persuasive candidate, perhaps someone can leverage the Libertarians since they already on the ballot, but that will also require a certain amount of ruthlessness...to the point of making de facto common cause with the democrats. I doubt there are any credible candidates out there, willing to assume this amount of risk in a deliberately doomed campaign.
As at the moment the only Libertarian making Presidential noises is, Bill Weld, God Help Us.

W'all Ah Swan...

reading Joan Vennochi's column in today's Globe is a wonder indeed, apparently she is on both Seth Moulton and Nancy Pelosi's side in their coming struggle for the speakership of the US House.  Somehow the argument goes that having finally battled thru to a strong majority, Nancy Pelosi must now slay two more dragons before claiming her title...and that somehow is good for the democratic party.

Division is never good at a time like this, especially when the opposition is more or else united and dominated by an ambitious authoritarian spirit.

What the hell does a woman, especially an older woman, have to do to claim power in this meshugginah country??  Never has success been punished so relentlessly, but then again this is the USA old and female is always a target in the private sector, I've seen it happen a dozen times.

Frankly I think Moulton is out of line here, he has seemingly nationalized his perpetual fight against party insiders and various unelected elites.  Fine Seth, I get it, you primaried Tierney you beat the odds you think you don't own anyone, anything.  Thats not a license to make a transparent and cringeworthy bid to overturn the US House Leadership via ageism and sexism...cuz thats what is in play here.  I think congressperson Moulton was hoping that the democrats would lose the House this year and thus clear the way for his coup, now however he faces an opponent with resources to redistribute and the wind at her back.

I hope it's enough...

This is just too good to be true....

Donald Trump is supposedly questioning the loyalty of his sycophantic toadying VP, Mike Pence, per the New York Times of Course.
This is just hilarious to contemplate on a number of levels, as well as being proof positive that Trump himself regards the recent midterms as a setback for him and the GOP he has completely suborned.
Just remember when Trump's back is to the wall, he lashes out at anyone anywhere as long as they are incapable of retaliation, and that is the very definition of the U.S. Vice Presidency.
If someone was ruthless, cunning & subtle, they'd stoke Trump's suspicions of Mike Pence and perhaps ignite one of his cringeworthy twitter tirades akin to the ones he unleashed that other canine-like Trump loyalist, Jeff Sessions.
Who knows? Maybe Pence can be intimidated into resigning...if the timing on that is just right, that puts Nancy Pelosi's House of Representatives directly astride the confirmation process.  Assuming of course Pelosi is the next Speaker of the House...and if she is, the House can easily withhold confirmation of the VP nominee and make a female democrat Trump's lawful successor for the rest of his term.
Sure its a crazy scenario, but we are living with a far crazier and more dangerous scenario every day...it certainly can't divide the nation any more than it is fractured at the moment, don't kid yourself.

Lumpy & Nothingness

The Boston Globe is predictably excited as the Governor has all but promised that his second term in office will basically be "more of the same".
What this means is, that the Globe will continue to give CPR to the bleached skeletal remains of "moderate republicanism", while Lumpy watches, quietly.
So if it is indeed, "more of the same", we can look forward to an MBTA that is still hobbling on crutches, while the buildings continue to degrade,  and the State Police's leadership continue to get indicted one by one...no one fired not one word from the Corner Office.
And trust me, Baker hasn't given up on his one true utopian notion, to privatize the public schools, make everyone pay more even as he touts tax cuts as the veritable cure for cancer.
This is what happens when you set the bar low for a republican they exploit it, and right now the bar is set so low for Lumpy a crippled ant could leap over it...

Notes from an UnNationalist...

""By ‘patriotism’ I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people...Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality." 

George Orwell

A few weeks and many many stupid statements ago, The President of the USA explicitly decloseted himself as a "nationalist" in front of one of his adoring rally crowds.  And today at the Centennial for the World War One Armistice, French President Macron very bravely denounced nationalism as the author of all Europe's travails.
y'know...he is right.
It was Germany's thirst to dominate Europe and push the Slavs behind the Ural Mountains that brought World War One down on us all.  All ignited by the nationalist notion that Germany was being "denied" something or else was menaced by semi-barbarous hordes.  The irony is, that only thing that "nationalist exercise"definitely accomplished was helping the Bolsheviks take over All The Russias.
Twenty years later it was the ultra-nationalist Adolf Hitler's turn to wage a war of extermination right to the gates of Moscow, only to have the Russians wage likewise and same all the way to the banks to the Elbe River.  One spasm of nationalism gave Russian to Marxism Leninism, the Second brought Communism at the point of a bayonet from "Stettin on the Baltic, to Triest on the Adriatic" in the neat phrase of Winston Churchill.
My point being, that Euro-Nationalism only ends up "Holding the Bridle" for some other equally bad Political Cult...the last time it was Marxism...this time, I can't say, with our luck Putin's Brand of degraded Ayn Randism maybe.

BTW Kudos to Representative Nancy Pelosi

she plotted the democrats comeback in the US House with consummate brilliance, she raised the funds, recruited the candidates, chose the battlegrounds and for the most part stayed off television for the last three weeks before the midterm.
She scotched Bush's plan to privatize social security, she got the ACA thru, she has been speaker, she has been back benched, the lady has experience, and on Tuesday Night after fifteen years, it paid off.
She managed to connect the dots all the way to victory in a degraded representative body that is riddled with the cancer of rotten boroughs, this is a significant achievement in these imperiled times.
There is a movement afoot (headed by our own Seth Moulton sad to say) to put aside Pelosi's leadership and elect someone else speaker next January.  This would be a terrible injustice, the fruits of Pelosi's victory should not be handed to someone else, she put the time in she deserves the sinecure.
Some say Trump has "figured her out" and will do nothing save heap scorn on Speaker Pelosi for the rest of his term. Well what of it? Scorn never killed anyone, and the GOP spent millions on adverts excoriating Nancy Pelosi, none of which stopped her or the democrats from flipping the US House..."bring on the hate" sez Humble Elias.
Moreover I think Pelosi has Trump "figured out" from his weakness for praise, his preference for untrustworthy chiselers for aides and authoritarian "talk" matched with an unsteady "walk".
Besides there is something about having Nancy Pelosi a mere two heartbeats away from the US Presidency that'll send Movement Conservatism into conniptions...and I am a connoisseur of conniptions mah frenz.

As for the Midterms (which I'll ruminate upon in detail in due course)

"I didn't get all that I wanted, but I got enough to work with...."

If I had to speculate...

and what "sarcastic rant driven blowhard" doesn't like to do that?  I'd say that Maura Healey thinks her path to The Corner Office is thru a "Girl Fight Tonight" scenario in 2022 wherein it's the AG versus The Lt Governor, Karyn Polito.
If Healey can get a match up like that, ergo two women on the general election ballot, she can effectively negate the dreaded "girl factor" which posits that a certain increment of voters simply won't vote for a woman for high office and will cast ballots for the male opponent on that basis.
Well, Elizabeth Warren dealt "the girl factor" a very satisfying body blow back in 2012, but it made a robust comeback in 2014 in the Coakley/Baker matchup, so its very much a potential issue in any notional gubernatorial race.
Of course, if it was left up to me, I'd try and talk the AG out of the race entirely, the problem with her particular constitutional office is, no matter how well she executes her duties, its still a job that makes enemies.  If Maura Healey is doing the job right (and it seems like she is) then she is just creating her own personal aggrieved faction that'll happily knife her in the back come October 2022.  On the other hand, Baker's original majority in 2014, was a bare 40,000 votes in a open race, Healey may believe she can close a narrow gap like that in a sufficiently tight race that has no easy gender divide.
Because Believe Me, Maura Healey IS running for Governor, her signs were utterly ubiquitous in Menotomy yesterday, she is clearly assembling a volunteer infrastructure all over the Commonwealth and her seventy percent majority last night may well have topped the entire democratic ticket statewide.
The only other thing that conditions a Healey candidacy for Governor is Charlie "Lumpy" Baker's future plans.  I've long suspected he'd love to run for the US Senate, or he has supporters that'd love to tempt him into such a race. Lumpy's nearest opportunity is running against Ed Markey in 2020, which is smack-dap astride Baker's second term, something that might trigger the Governor's famous anxiety and caution.  Meanwhile Joan Vennochi (remember her???) is conjuring with a "Baker for President in 2020" meme, something I'd discount, Lumpy doesn't have the guts to directly Donald Trump either in the NH Primary or on an Independent ticket.
I'd go deeper into the mechanics of Warren running for President and somehow winning thus opening up another special US senate election and giving Lumpy the opportunity to appoint an interim Senator...but then this was a posting about Maura Healey's ambition...:)

"We Only Lose When We Quit"

Whatever happens tonight and in the days to come, win or lose, remember giving up or getting out, is mere self destruction. "If we are pushed out of the valley, we will fight in the hills". (Okay thats a quote from "Zapata" starring Marlon Brando, but its apt all the same)

Stay Strong, Do Your Duty, remember Churchill's Admonition:

“In War: Resolution,
In Defeat: Defiance,
In Victory: Magnanimity
In Peace: Good Will.”

For the US Senate Tomorrow...

I heartily endorse Elizabeth Warren in tomorrow's contested election for the U.S. Senate. I do so, because she has been more effective than is presented in her publicity, and because Geoff Diehl would be a disaster for the Commonwealth as a US Senator, less a solon, more of a Trump sycophant to put it neatly.
There is word on the street that Warren badly wants to run for President, all the auspices point to a run sad to say, despite Humble Elias' bid to talk her off the ledge.  Nonetheless, if I was willing to take the same risk with Kerry, Dukakis, Tsongas and Kennedy, then I ought to extend the same courtesy to Warren with my vote tomorrow.
But then Massachusetts is a hotbed of ambition, Katherine Clark wants to be Senator, Maura Healey wants to be Governor, the pot is ever boiling.

I also urge a YES vote on Question Three, by voting yes on said ballot measure we collectively affirm our confidence in our state's current transgender rights & protections, in the current national political zeitgeist this is a desperately needed affirmation indeed.

Whatever the outcome tomorrow, do not despair, do not fear, if we are defeated here, we will simply fight elsewhere. It is not necessary to win, it is important to keep fighting no matter what.  We lose only when we quit.

Jay Gonzalez in Menotomy Part II...

I gotta say, Jay Gonzalez remains energetic, and is seemingly resolved to "go down swinging" come what may...

The candidate made a rousing campaign appearance at the Sons of Italy in (Romantic) Arlington flanked by Congressperson Katherine Clark and the Commonwealth's AG Maura Healey...so it was a peppery trio up at the podium to be sure.

And just on a side note, I will say congressperson Clark fairly exudes the heady perfume of senatorial ambition, at the moment our representation seems set in the US Senate but I'm not sure she'd hesitate for more than twelve hours if an opportunity presented itself.
For that fact, you can tell Maura Healey is just waiting out Charlie Baker to make her run for Governor, she has already worked up a good liberal populist pitch that she tried out Friday Night.
And yet, I could eat beans off her head, I can't believe she once played pro basketball, I got sacks of potatoes bigger than Maura Healey.
Health to all their endeavors, sez Humble Elias.
Meanwhile...
I'll go to my grave insisting Jay Gonzalez is the better man for the job of Governor of the Commonwealth. Lumpy touts a record of shallow "successes" and ducks almost all the bigger issues menacing our prosperity & liberties, Gonzalez at least understands there is a matrix out there of dire challenges, the quicker we address them the better our prospects will be in the years to come.

And besides, this republic is on a collision course with a Constitutional Crisis. It is likely unavoidable at this point, among the many things we will need when the final extremity is reached, is State Governors who love our rights and liberties more than they love their careers and their lives.

That ain't Charlie "Lumpy" Baker, believe me. The best we can hope for out of that guy in his second term is more chiseling on behalf of the charter school placebo at the expense of our Public Schools.
In all, a disheartening prospect.

So its with great fanfare that I wholeheartedly endorse the ticket of Jay Gonzalez and Quentin Palfrey for Governor and Lt Governor on Tuesday, I will be working hard for both of them on that day.

Yesterday, The Boston Globe had the temerity to anoint

Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker as an "Anti-Trump Republican".

All I can say is with "GOP Opponents" like Lumpy arrayed against him, Trump can look forward to a   Despotism  that'll make Gaius Caligula look like a peevish Scoutmaster.

But then I'm not sure there is really any effective opposition to Trump within the GOP, certainly in the last two years what have they prevented The President from saying or doing?
Exactly nothing,  the GOP "opposition" is largely muted and of a purely rhetorical nature. Moreover said "opposition" is conditioned and corrupted by the need to negotiate with Trump with respect to items like judicial nominations (exp "Kavanaugh") and the only thing the republicans universally worship like pagan idolators...tax cuts.
Onto this battlefield, steps Charlie "Lumpy" Baker, unarmed and unwilling...he rebukes the president, in soft tones but if Trump ever bids on tearing up the US Constitution and ruling with an Iron Hand Our Governor will be the first to run like a rat in a firestorm.
Count On It.

I give props to VP Mike Pence

faced with the exceedingly simple task of finding a Rabbi to deliver a few bland prayers at a campaign event the damn fool somehow found a "Jew for Jesus" (basically a sneaking evangelical xian cult) and there achieved Something Remarkable if entirely by accident.
The VP managed in one swell foop to UNITE the Jewish Community in the US if only in revulsion for such a crude provocative act.
Tasteless as well in the wake of the anti-semitic "Tree of Life" massacre, to indulge what amounts to evangelical christians with a taste for Jewish Cosplay.
But then this is Mike Pence we are talking about, dumb and boring make up the whole of his political brand.
Someday though, I'd like to address this obsessive need to pray over our politicians at public events, it sure betrays an unconscious lack of trust in my books.  I'd prefer politicians that are honest, not necessarily saved, because any damn fool can claim to have a reservation on God's Footstool as far as I'm concerned.

Okay this one is a riot...

The Boston Globe has formally endorsed Daniel Fishman, a libertarian for State Auditor.  The Value Structure, on Morrissey Boulevard is utterly inexplicable.  The reasoning offered in the above cited link is that the democratic incumbent Suzanne Bump has (among other things) bungled the investigation into the State Police Payroll Scandal.  This would be The Exact Same State Police Payroll Scandal over which the Incumbent republican Governor  presides and yes that is the same Charlie "Lumpy"Baker that the Globe Endorsed for reelection yesterday!!!
This is the same Charlie Baker who has yet to fire anyone at the State Police despite a steady stream of indictments for chiseling, obstruction of justice & Ghod knows what else!
This is the same Charlie Baker who seems content to keep abreast of said scandal by reading the Boston Globe every morning...
Never has neglect and mediocrity been so ringingly validated, The Globe has hit rock goddamn bottom what they excoriate in Suzanne they endorse in Lumpy.  What more can anyone say???

Lumpy Gets Endorsed by the Boston Globe...

Governor Baker's reelection was endorsed by the Boston Globe via an unsigned editorial today.  Its worth reading if you are a fan of half hearted commendations and vague yearnings for the vanished moderate republicanism of yesteryear.  Sheer Mediocrity Has Never Been So Celebrated. The Globe also earnestly wishes that Baker would be more of an Anti-Trump leader in the GOP once reelected.
I'm advising Morrissey Boulevard as a subscriber mind you, not to hold their collective breath.
The time to have done something about Trump was over two years ago in the Presidential Primary, Baker might have been able to bring in a delegation that instructed to oppose Trump but Baker declined to do that, he "Waved Through" the candidate.  Since that time, Baker's "opposition" to Trump has been muted, terse and rhetorical, The Boston Globe cannot expect anything more from Lumpy.
But then again this is an ongoing institutional bias on the part of The Boston Globe, they are seemingly desperate to foster moderate republicanism in the face of the GOP's headlong lurch into dark web rightical chic lunacy.  What Morrissey Boulevard doesn't realize is that they are giving CPR to what amounts to a skeleton...
I have to say I am disappointed in the Boston Globe but not surprised,  despite a spirited effort from democrat Jay Gonzalez they've largely relegated the entire campaign to the second and third pages of the Metro Section, which is pretty much a huge media win for Baker right there.  Gonzalez at least has at last got some adverts on TV at least he thinks the fight ought to be made come what may....

Shabbat Shalom

and peace to the ashes of all who perished yesterday at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.

So it falls to me to ask is antisemitic violence our "new normal" in the USA?  If so, then we've degraded ourselves past the hope or recovery and may sadly  board up shop and decamp for the caves.

Meanwhile the President's response seems to have something to do with arming the Rabbis....

So we'd best make sure that this is not, the new normal.  Some very stupid and violent people out there have felt themselves, authorized and energized to commit heinous crimes lately...which leads to my other question which is: "If they don't get their fantasized result on election day, on whom and where will they lash out?"


I think thats a question that carries an urgent impetus....

BTW...

according to a new study we could well be underestimating the number of opioid addicts out there. Meanwhile Charlie Baker still has TV commercials out there running on a quarter hourly basis touting progress in the "opioid crisis".  Oh yet again its late October in a gubernatorial race in Massachusetts and the incumbent drifts thru the heavens like a untethered blimp, murmuring the occasional sleepy cliche' and pretending all is well.
Oh and National Grid/Columbia Gas have already punted the deadline to get the heat back on in Andover/Lawrence.  That one made the Metro Section of the Globe today...I only remark on this in passing because outside my window a nice cold wet Nor'easter is raging on.  But the Baker/Polito campaign blimp wallows along, untroubled.
And lets not forget that collection of democratic mayors who have eagerly endorsed Lumpy's reelection bid right there on camera for all to see...blimp-tenders every one of them.  I like Rivera up in Lawrence but I won't weep any salt tears if someone primaries him and all of his fellow-travelers at the next election...assuming we still have elections.

Lumpy is a die hard republican in the sense that he'll never ever regret his complacent performance in office, the rest of us though, the ones that can afford to live in the Commonwealth, will rue the day believe me.

No Pipe Bomb Sent to Me as Yet...

which is a poor result for some fifteen years of "sarcastic rant driven chatter" (per Boston Magazine)...

But as usual, I digress, I don't think this is any longer about "the decline of civility", its officially now about the Survival of Constitutional Governance, I'll take a great deal of incivility if I can guarantee the survival of the latter.
That being the case we have to consider the possibility of escalation, from below or above if
mid term election results are not favorable to our opponents. We must also be prepared for escalation even if said results are in their favor.
I am not saying the country is falling apart, or civil war looms, I am saying right now, the other guys are a lot further down the road to division and ruin than we are, shouting at Ted Cruz in a restaurant is hardly Maquis Tactics in the face of pipe bombs.

"A house divided against itself, cannot stand...I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. "

Abraham Lincoln, 1858

If Martin O'Malley really wants to run for President in 2020

assuming we still have elections or a country by then, He could do no worse than by promising to Stand By The U.S. Constitution and also End the Malign Practice of Phishing Phone Calls aka "Voice Phishing" or "Vishing".  No Joke Mah Frenz, My Ninety Five Year Old Mother still gets at least two of these vicious shakedown calls a day from ViOP Boiler Rooms the world over.  Thank Ghod almighty she has all her marbles and knows enough to hang up...but the calls are intrusive, abusive and seemingly aimed to defraud the Elderly of the USA en masse.
Lets Protect Our Elections from Foreign Interference certainly, but lets put a stop to "Vishing" as well...the two notions seem to dovetail together in my mind.
Dropping the Qualification Age for Medicare is ... Great don't get me wrong, but ending for good these maddeningly phone calls from Far Off Lands will yield a tremendous electoral windfall for the Democrats.

Elizabeth, Martin, Joe, Seth....ya listening?

Unless I Miss My Guess...

Citizen Warren is running for President in 2020.  I can tell because her current bumper sticker just reads "Senator Elizabeth Warren" and declines pointedly to cite the aspirational office in question.
Unless of course someone can talk her out of it or else Mass General Hospital comes up with a vaccination against "Potomac Fever".
I think the Senior Senator faces long odds, to put it succinctly, she has to bust thru not one, but two Glass Ceilings, the one that keeps females out of the Oval Office and the one that keeps anyone from Massachusetts from getting elected President.
On the other hand she may well be telling herself that busting thru glass ceilings is her "brand" whats two more to her...
Those ceilings are awful thick Senator, think about it, you could easily end up being blamed for Trump's second term....

Sunday Night Tirade...

"I knew your Daddy, Camille Gravel, and he was a fine man. But you are trying to make yourself a big man, and you're nothing but a little pissant."

Earl K. Long, 1960.

BTW here is a nice collection of Lumpy's worst moments in Last Week's Debate...that dead-fish-stare of his...yikes.  Baker is a lot of things, but he is not a leader as I understand the term, he certainly isn't a leader to rise to a crisis in any way.  The State Police have become a chiseling laughing stock and all Baker and his handpicked Commander seem to do is read about it in the Boston Globe.

Just imagine Lumpy as The Prime Minister of England during the Battle of Britain..."These bombs are really unfortunate, but we have allocated eight billion dollars to cart away the rubble..."

Lumpy Pretty Much Made a Blathering Fool of Himself in Last Night's Debate...

He could not answer a straight question from Jay Gonzalez as to whether or not he would be voting for Geoffrey Diehl for the US Senate this Fall. Baker hemmed and hawed and looked like a dope on live TV...I'll bet he gets that "deer in the headlights" look a lot off camera in private.
In fact, Lumpy only held out until the post forum press conference before caving in completely  by promising to vote for Diehl the very gruesome antithesis of Baker's alleged republican moderation. Before the awesome irresistible might of Citizen Diehl and the TrumpHordes Lumpy lasted about as long as a wet paper bag.
The reason for this pathetic indecision & craven surrender is simple, no one ever asked Baker if his alleged republican moderation was relevant in the age of Trump or if it could moderate any type of policy under discussion? Indeed how could it be when he plans to vote for an ideological thug like Geoffrey Diehl? You'd think he'd have some sort of answer prepared, but no, Lumpy has had it took easy for too long, he was flatly unprepared.

Sick, Demented, Typical...

Supposedly....

This trashy sycophantic masterpiece is hanging in Donald Trump's Oval Office, if you look closely though,  Herbert Hoover, Calvin Coolidge and Warren G. Harding are all in the background looking faintly disgusted.  Earning the disdain of Warren G. Harding is no small achievement, that man was a memorably cheap slob in extremis.  Trump is impossibly slender in this painting...smirking hatefully as usual, no wonder he loves it.

If I read correctly...

The Saudis and the Turks are going to create "A Joint Commission" to investigate the murder of Jamil Khashoggi. Or as I like to think of it, the Perpetrators of the Crime and the Enablers of the Crime, are investigating the Crime.

Oh and Donald Trump has vowed to get to the bottom of this abomination, just remember his idea of "Discussing Russian Election Interference" with Putin started with kissing the same's ruby red ring.

Or still another way of thinking of it, a total of three journalism-hating regimes are now gonna figure out who tortured, killed & dismembered a journalist....how ya think thats gonna turn out?

Turkey throws in the Towel...

and finally frees Pastor Brunson which I am sure has nothing to do with the disappearance/alleged death of Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.  The BBC is claiming that Turkish Intelligence has a recording of Khashoggi's interrogation and murder.
The current theory is, Khashoggi was literally dismembered, which is good old fashioned Nazi Terror Tactics designed specifically to intimidate the opposition and especially journalists worldwide, the German Word is Schrecklichkeit "frightfulness".
Such civilized allies we have, In The House of Saud, who are themselves "Putin Class" Trump enabler$ which likely explains why US Intelligence never warned Khashoggi that Riyadh was gunning for him, literally.
Moreover, Turkish Intelligence was listening in, and did nothing, as Khashoggi (a brother Muslim I might add) was tortured, killed and dismembered, not only that they, let the Saudi Hit Squad depart unmolested.
God Almighty only knows what else The Turks know about this horror show whatever it is, it was enough to scare them into releasing Brunson.
Good they ought to be scared...more transparency seems to be the only thing that sways these barbarians.

"Yeah, when WILL Charlie Baker gonna fire someone at the State Police"?

Here I echo sentiments expressed by Jay Gonzalez at the last Gubernatorial Debate.
We all know the answer to that, a republican even a republican with a two billion percent approval rating like Lumpy, would sooner blow their own brains out than let any daylight get between them and "Our Police Force" especially the Staties.
This is why Lumpy is content to keep track of the issue by reading the Boston Globe faithfully every single morning and leave the rest to the AG, the DA and the Feds.  It certainly looks craven (hell it is craven), and so far as I can see, Lumpy will be marinated in craveness by election day.
I'll give props to Jay Gonzalez for at least rhetorically confronting the problem (normally democrats have their inhibitions about confronting a public sector union) so that is at least some progress. Meanwhile someone at the State Police wants to start shredding documents, the plan got scotched at the last minute and all Lumpy seems to be able to mumble "thats a good fail-safe"...
There is no better fail safe than a Governor willing to take action against chiselers and corruptards....think on that Lumpy.

"BTW"

Governor Charlie "Lumpy" Baker quietly endorsed the "Yes on Three" campaign thus boxing the compass on LGBT issues, but then remember this is also a man who a scant month ago endorsed notorious fag basher Geoff Diehl for the US Senate. The whole thing however, was entirely downed out by the National Kavanaugh Hangover this weekend. All this tells me is that Baker's campaign must be less concerned about "Scott Lively" voters defecting or blanking their ballots on election day.  In other words, their numbers must look good for Lumpy to embrace a measure related to simple human decency.  I'm sure if there was a risk of even a quiet schism in the GOP Lumpy would run from Question Three like a vampire fears holy water.

"That Could Have Gone Better"...

We keep learning the same painful lesson over and over again in this country, that if we are waiting for Maine Senator Susan Collins to save our rights and liberties, we wait in vain.
Because as of right now, the Supreme Court is packed with Spectrumy Ideological Suicide Bombers, and somehow despite all her misgivings, lower lip pulling, anguished cries, Senator Collins managed to vote for all of them.
But then, I've been saying for years that "republican moderation" is basically a racket.  It allows access to certain fundraising resources that are denied to a grass-eater and it gets plenty of good ink from credulous outfits like the Boston Globe that are eager to pretend that "moderate republicans" are a potent force within the GOP.
In voting for Kavanaugh last week, Senator Collins simply buried for good the notion that "republican moderation" abides and is well positioned to "moderate something".  She sat silently as Judge Kavanaugh slipped into a berserker rage and literally blamed his binge drinking on Hillary Clinton when he wasn't pledging allegiance to some notional one party state.  Maybe you can make an argument that  there is but hearsay evidence as to his drinking and philandering...but the man basically shouted threats at the US Senate, and the lot of them and Susan Goddamn Collins just sat there!
Simple regard for judicial impartiality and sanctity of the US Senate dictated a "No Vote", but McConnell, Grassley & Graham long ago emigrated to a dark foreign place where any conflict between the Constitution and  mere Ideology must be won by the One True Faith.
I give Senator Heitkamp her due, she correctly saw the mortal threat posed to an impartial judiciary by Judge Kavanaugh's bestial outburst and voted no accordingly, she at least has a sense of institutional self preservation.
Otherwise the US Senate has officially hit rock bottom, why should they defend any of our rights, when they won't even stand up for their own dignity?
My big takeaway from all this is that threats, belligerence and escalation all work, at least on the US Senate.

Kay Bailey Hutchinson...

Our Ambassador to NATO (I was wondering where she ended up...) is the first member of the current administration to notice that Putin's Russia has casually broken it's INF Treaty obligations by deploying a new generation of cruise missiles in Eastern Russia.
She briefly mused over "taking out" those missiles before hastily walking back those comments, so while we've finally acknowledged the existence of the cruise missiles we've responded by making a threat we can't back up that was of itself subsequently withdrawn.
For the record, we've no regional capacity to "take out" said missiles because the USA is still keeping it's INF Treaty obligations in the face of a clear Russian violation of the same.
That's Putin's harsh wintery laughter on the soundtrack by the way.
So far as anyone can tell President Trump has not taken up this issue with the Russian Despot in any manner shape or form.

Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Nazi Germany was more artfully arranged than this humiliating mishaugas.

Liz Don't Do It...

I know every Bernie-crat and PUMA from Here to Guam, wants you to pile into the 2020 race, just remember a generation ago, their parents were blowing smoke into Ted Kennedy's face, and he fell well short in 1980.  Since that time five other guys from Massachusetts, four democrats and one republican have all tried and failed to grab off the Big Brass Ring.
I repeat myself, beyond the Berkshires, they hate us. Dunno why...maybe its Tom Brady's infuriating Barrymore-esque Profile, or the fact that they ship their kids in by the Regiment for very expensive educations...whatever it is, you mention Massachusetts in Shreveport and blood pressures start spiking.
I don't know how to fix that, I suspect only time can redress the matter, and we only get one more shot at Trump in the electoral college.  I don't think a woman from Massachusetts is the winning ticket in 2020....I've already seen the men all fall short,  All you will accomplish is keeping Bernie on the sidelines at the cost of listening to dumbasses war-whooping for eighteen months.
That and likely losing either the primaries or the big one.
Think about it Senator, just don't listen to those urgent souls who insist "its now or never"....

Apropos of Nothing...

but it has been my experience, that no one quite carries on like this who doesn't harbor very real feelings of guilt.
When you have something to hide, you scream and carry on, because its your crapulous feelings/memories you are fighting...And even if Mark Judge can't vindicate Judge Kavanaugh he ought to testify all the same, otherwise it implies that evidence is being deliberately withheld.

"I Heard Smiles"

A colleague of mine, the veritable "Sage of Winter Hill", remarked with some mirth yesterday that Trump's disastrous press conference resembled nothing so much as Humphrey Bogart's "Captain Queeg" coming apart at the seams on the witness stand.
A very insightful observation to be sure, even if Trump's standout quote "I Heard Smiles" is a soaring poetical conjuration worthy of Rod McKuen or perhaps Gerardus Tros.  No I have little to add to the general shock,mirth & anxiety save to say that quite literally Trump has been coming apart at the seams live on television since 2015, but unlike Captain Queeg, he isn't being held accountable for it.
Why?
The man has enablers, most of them, in fact hate Donald Trump with a mortal passion, but as long as they fear him and his hold on the "GOP Base", as long as he nominates Falangists to Judgeships and as long as there is a ruinous tax cut to be passed, they'll hunker down and do as they are told.

Thus the day will come when we can carve on Mitch McConnell's tombstone "He Made a Bonfire of his Country to warm his Ideology".

But don't worry when that day comes, many years from now, McConnell, Charles Grassley and Paul Ryan will all rate Flag Draped Coffins, the very national ensign whose proud essence and liberties they did their uttermost to destroy.
Ironic Huh?

Charlie "Lumpy" Baker....Lifelong Moderate:

Just remember when prestige and power is on the line, Charlie Baker would endorse embrace or just cravenly capitulate to just about any Falangist Bastard. He has a particular gruesome talent for consorting with Fagbashing thugs (pictured above VP Pence, unpictured, Geoffrey Diehl) without compromising his own alleged bona fides with the gay community.

Only in America..

Does a woman have to defend her accusation of rape against a powerful man, by hiring lawyers at her own expense....
Abraham Lincoln would be the first to note the burden of proof is on both the US Senate and the Executive Department, this is a felony accusation after all.
But then there is a grim irony in all this, as a young Unscrupulous Falangist Attorney, Kavanaugh fruitlessly sherlocked Hilary Clinton looking for proof of criminality in the death of Vincent Foster. Now someone is sherlocking his privileged @ss and of course, Kavanaugh and his supporters are squealing like entitled little bitches.
So much politics, much of it praetorian, so little reverence for the US Constitution, this cannot be sustained over the intermediate term, sooner or later Justice and Truth will rain down from the Heavens like retribution.

A short note to my delegation to the Great and General Court...

Representatives Garballey & Rogers, Senator Friedman,

After last weeks fatal and terrifying "overpressure event" in Lawrence/Andover...feel free, all of yes, to Investigate The Shit Out of this Disaster!!!
This is the exactly the sort of thing, the state legislature usually does with admirable dispatch and thoroughness, ergo sticking their collective nose in someone else's shady-ass business!!!
I don't care how it's done, Senate Committee,  House Committee, Joint Committee, maybe even a Citizen's Commission...as long as the power of subpoena is in play I'll be happy.  Grill those bastards from Columbia Gas like some barbecue bratwursts!!!
Don't wait around for Charlie "Lumpy" Baker he'll dither and mutter platitudes, harassing miscreants in the private sector isn't his style....that is on the other hand very much in the legislature's wheelhouse, interrogating thieving chiselers is their thang.

Go for it guys! Cover this breathing earth, like a shitstorm out of hell!!!

Kavanaugh...

The US Senate, is pretty much the Republic's Reserve Army of Guilt & Bad Faith, thy waved thru twitchy weirdo Clarence Thomas onto the Supreme Court back in the day, and in the end they'll try at least, to wave thru Brett Kavanaugh regardless of his grotesque sexual escapades in Prep School.
They have no choice they have too many sins on their souls and too many mistresses or peg boys stuffed into the shadows to do otherwise.
I'm not surprised that Kavanaugh has a nasty near rape on his conscience, C.S. Lewis talks about "The Intoxicated Will", those gawd awful prep schools are nothing but vast incubators for class rule and power worship of a grotesque neo pagan variety.
Just remember at the end of the day, Brett Kavanaugh, glib, colonized & naively utopian is the worst possible jurist Trump could have nominated that could be reasonably expected to get confirmed...
On that basis alone he merits fighting to the last ditch to keep him off the court.
The fact that he may well be a drunken rapist is merely the surface manifestation of a larger deeper necrosis of the character.

I don't think its a good idea

for the Sunday Globe's Chief Foreign Policy Bloviator, Stephen Kinzer to refer to Ayanna Pressley & Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez as a pair of jungle lionesses who are gonna shred up the US House of Representatives.  Its a really unfortunate simile IMHO coming from Morrissey Boulevard's notorious neo-appeaser and declinist.

Lawrence, Andover...

One House might go up in chunks due to a gas leak...but dozens at a time? Its unheard of...

I think the AG needs to thoroughly investigate this whole catastrophe, its cost exactly one life so far and that's one life too many as far as your humble bloviator is concerned.
BTW Kudos to the private citizens up in the affected areas who ran up and down streets with Monkey Wrenches shutting off gas valves, that is spontaneous teamwork and magnanimity in the very Best American Tradition.
Meanwhile I've got to figure out where the gas cut off valve is in this house.

Just Remember....

That nice colorless inoffensive Governor of Ours, Charlie "Lumpy" Baker, a man whose blood supposedly runs cold with the milk of GOP Moderation, still managed to Endorse for the US Senate, Geoff Diehl groveling grievance ridden Trump apologist.
The reason for this is simple, Scott Lively a twitchy penniless wing nut weirdo got thirty five percent of the GOP vote in their gubernatorial primary last week.  People forget that Baker only won the Governorship four years ago by thirty thousand votes, if thirty five percent of the GOP Base stays home or blanks their ballots he could still end up in trouble high approval ratings or no high approval ratings.
So...that activates the cynical software in Baker's brain and thus endorsing Diehl's senate bid against Elizabeth Warren is a small price to pay for GOP Unity this fall.
Meanwhile some ten democratic mayors here in the Commonwealth are allegedly supporting Baker for Governor this fall, does this mean they will be passing out Diehl for Senate law signs as well?
At any rate, I think the captioned local democratic municipal committees are well within their rights to seek redress via primary challenges...

Grim Irony...

That the Chinese Muslim Minority, the Uyghurs are being systematically repressed by Beijing and their best advocates are the Admin's biggest witch burners and book burners, I refer to "Roving Ambassador for Religious Freedom, Sam Brownback", a Xian Primitive whose life dream is to compel protestant church attendance for all save perhaps the President he serves.
Of course, if you take a giant step back, all Beijing's actions are the exact same repressive measures that Trump's base routinely fantasize about on Social Media, repression, denial of rights and of course, detention.
Or to take a even bigger step back, "Save The Uyghurs and Screw the Catholic Refugees on the Rio Grande"...but maybe thats too far a step back.

:)

Anonymous...

I'm not gonna delve too deeply into the possible identity of the NYT's Anonymous "Resistance" Correspondent within the Trump Admin, I'm still not convinced the whole thing isn't an elaborate hoax, Trump himself would love to spoof the New York Times, that is if he had the brains for the job.
But...
Assuming the missive is legit, then some things ought to be discussed and detailed...

The letter itself has a whining exculpatory tone common to persons who fear imminent indictment, one is left with the impression that bad craziness is happening Behind the Scenes in the White House.
On the other hand, given the President's Primitive Paranoid & Immature Personality, why would anyone enrolled in a in-house "Resistance Cell" go blabbing to the New York Times when the short and intermediate term success of said undertaking depends on the maintenance of strict secrecy?
I think the writer's goal here, may be to provoke a public constitutional crisis, goad Trump into a berserker meltdown that cannot be walked back by his increasingly besieged enablers and thus either compel the Vice President & the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment or else induce Trump to resign.
I doubt President Trump can be persuaded to resign save by a overwhelming threat he cannot deflect or evade and even then he'd want certain guarantees.  It is somewhat within his business profile to cut and run when the going gets tough, but he was usually able to "rip off a piece" on his way out, that is very much a potential situation that would require close scrutiny indeed.
As for the 25th Amendment, VP Mike Pence he was well selected in once sense, he seems blindly loyal to the President and exudes the baffled air of an imperiled contestant on the "Celebrity Apprentice".  Pence wouldn't bat an eye if Trump started mainlining thorazine in the middle of a press conference.
That leaves the time consuming option of impeachment which is still a political and logistical impossibility, for the moment...
My only other suspicion is that the author is likely not the VP or any member of the cabinet, it may well be someone fairly anonymous but with a great deal of access to the President and his in & out box, that suggests a staffer within the West Wing, other than that yer guess is as good as mine.

Irony in Postscript...

Mike Capuano who lost his primary race on Tuesday ending a ten year career in the US House, loudly endorsed incumbent Marilyn Petitto Devaney via election day robocall in her primary fight against Nick Carter.  Capuano, lost, and Devaney won, which is at best a confusing lesson on the power of endorsements in a down ballot race...

Primary Post Mortem...

In some ways "that could have gone better".

Congrats though to Ayanna Pressley, she proved the pundits and the wise guys all wrong, she demonstrated a very thorough ground game through out her district, she won because she wanted it more, spoke eloquently & worked harder.  I predict her victory will set off a wave of primary challenges in Massachusetts come 2020, in particular Boston Mayor Marty Walsh had better get his ducks in a row so to speak.
Sadly, Incumbent Governor's Councilor, Third District Marilyn Petitto Devaney ran up a ten thousand vote majority in her race against Nick Carter. Exactly how she did this remains a mystery to me, unless sheer ubiquitous incumbency has an even greater power than previously measured.  Otherwise the woman has a genius talent for either boring or infuriating her audiences, but then marginal candidates like her can achieve tenure in office in these down ballot races.  If she primaried again next time her challenger is going to have to work up a serious GOTV operation and spend some money.
And equally sadly, Jimmy Tingle got skunked in the democratic Lt. Governor's race by Quentin Palfrey, this one is another puzzler unless Palfrey's last minute television commercial was enough to decisively tip the race in his favor. My only other theory is perhaps Palfrey "pulled an Ed King" and just made a better effort at outreaching and motivating the hard core progressives/Trump Haters.  I suspect heavy Anti Trump rhetoric will be Palfrey's go-to this fall not sure how far that can take us in a gubernatorial race but then I've been mistaken before believe me.
As for Citizen Tingle, I think we missed an opportunity here, Jimmy had a natural constancy among unions and blue collar voters, as a comedian he'd worked those cadres for years its not for nothing that there was a giant "Jimmy Tingle for Lt. Governor" sign posted outside Paddy's venerable pub in North Cambridge.  Its those "Tingle Voters" we need to pull back into our coalition if we hope to win this fall.
Anyhow I hope this doesn't pull Jimmy off perhaps contesting another race going forward, as a candidate he had many virtues and hopefully better outcomes can be expected, going forward.

Primary Day Tomorrow...

I am voting for: Jay Gonzalez for Governor.  I like Jay, he understands one thing, we may be in calm waters now, but the Commonwealth is facing toxic challenges in public transportation, housing, environment & health down the road, and he seems willing to try and face up to them.  Like Charlie Baker he is a former Secretary of Administration & Finance (for Deval Patrick) unlike Lumpy though, Gonzalez understands the less we do now, the fewer options we will have in the future.  I like Bob Massie, if he is nominated tomorrow night he'll have no firmer friend this fall than me, he is a bantam fighter and he'll be the last off the battlefield win or lose.  Given Massie's lack of any public experience at all, he is a bit of a wild-card, moreover putting him at the top of the ticket automatically ensures both our nominees for Govern & Lt Governor have almost zero electoral experience, that seems chancy to me.  But if the democrats choose otherwise, so be it, I'll be out there banging the pots for Massie...
Anyhow, Gonzalez makes a lot of practical sense on the the opioid crisis, transportation, criminal justice and he is willing to call climate change, climate change, the very quintessential Massachusetts Issue we need to start confronting, now.
For Lieutenant Governor: Jimmy Tingle, this race is noticeable for a stark choice between two men with zero electoral experience, Tingle's opponent Palfrey has had some third tier appointments in Obama's White House but it isn't like he was Ambassador to the Court of Saint James or anything. Jimmy Tingle on the other hand is eloquent ,funny, a veritable avatar of blue collar democratic politics whose campaign stickers are in the windows of corner pubs and taverns all over Cambridge and Somerville.  He has a strong "Union Household" vibe something we are gonna need this fall.
Yes he is a stand up comedian by trade, but those at least make Tingle a formidable interlocutor come the fall and that quite frankly is a key deliverable for a nominee for Lt. Governor.
Third District, Governor's Council: Nick Carter.  The Governor's Council passes judgement on the Governor's Judicial Nominees, Carter is a young articulate attorney, he'll evaluate the nominees on their talents and merits, and he's running for a public institution that requires a regular infusion of specialized knowledge, Nick Has All That in Spades. His opponent, Marilyn Petitto Devaney has simply been on the job too long for the good she has done and has consistently exuded an irritating and exasperating campaign style at her public appearances, her campaign mailings are full of nonsensical charges & misspellings, its time for her to go very frankly.  I don't regard Nick Carter as anyone's idea of an apotheosis, but I feel sure he can rise to the occasion.
Secretary of State: Bill Galvin, I don't like the full play of Galvin's personal politics but he has worked his boney ass off for the plain people of Massachusetts, that much is clear, he has done nothing to merit his expulsion from office and in voting for him, I pay a reasonable price for Party Unity.
I wish Josh Zakim well, if his name comes before me again on a future  primary ballot, I'll give him consideration, all that said, its still Galvin. Oh another thing I like about Bill Galvin, he didn't make an endorsement in the Third Governor's Council District...:)

I was at best entirely neutral with respect

to the democratic congressional primary in the Seventh District, better known as "Pressley versus Capuano".
But then Congressman Capuano had to go and endorse via robocall embattled Governor's Council Incumbent Marilyn Petite Devaney who herself is locked in a tight democratic primary race with Nick Carter.
I gotta hand it to Ms. Devaney she must have a very serious marker to call in vis-a-vis Capuano to get this critical an endorsement from a politician with his own primary challenge, but that doesn't change one whit my low opinion of her leadership or incumbency.
I'm voting for Nick Carter tomorrow in the Third Governor's Council District Primary, Ms. Devaney has simply "tarried too long for the good she hath done" we must be quit of her, if for no other reason than she simply refuses to reflect on the calendar and peacefully depart public office.
As for Congressman Mike Capuano, I am deeply disappointed in him, I don't live in his district, so all I can do is wish the very best to his primary Opponent Ayanna Presley, hopefully she'll be the breath of fresh air the U.S. House of Representatives desperately needs.

No offense Bloomberg News...

But I could have told you back in May, that nothing would come of the current denuclearization talks with North Korea, summit with Comrade Kim or no summit.
Weirdly both sides got what they wanted, which wasn't much to begin with, Trump wanted a short term sugar high pseudo "diplomatic triumph", true he got some hostages back and some Korean War  Soldiers Remains have been returned, other than that pfft.
Kim on the other hand got a de-escalation of tensions and a reopening of negotiations with the Seoul, without giving up his nukes or even rendering up an accounting of his strategic stockpile.
Of the two, I'd say Kim came out with a bigger haul, he's kept all his assets and collected a few tangible and intangible perks as well.
Its clear to me that the P.R.C. can live a lot more easily with a nuclear armed North Korea than it can with the prospect of a Korean Peninsula that may be united under the auspices of the USA and its defense "umbrella".

And as long as that is the case, our options are limited, Peking wants a divided Korea, Kim's price for that division is the retention of his nukes. At the end of the day, all we can do is reinforce the garrison and reassure our allies that we stand by our military commitments to their defense.  I am sure the phone lines are open to Secretary Pompeo's office.

Lastly, and this is for the historic record, Congress is well within its rights to ask the State Department for a full accounting of the Kim-Trump Summit if only to assure itself and the electorate that no unseemly or unreasonable obligations were promised or undertaken by this republic.

Rhetorically speaking we are right back where we were in January...

This is...

The Wachusett Reservoir Dam,  largest hand built Levee still in use in all the world, dedicated in 1906 if I am not mistaken.

And I hope to Hell someone is keeping up with inspections on this sumbitch BETTER than whoever was tasked to keep an eye on the Alewife MBTA Parking Garage...cuz a couple of thousand people live downstream of this dam...just saying thats all.

JM RIP...

Peace to His Ashes, Succor to his Loved Ones.

After yesterday's One-Two Whammy...

Manafort & Cohen both guilty...rubble falling from the sky all over Washington DC, I'd gently advise GOP Senatorial Aspirant Geoff Diehl to forego mentioning Donald Trump's name out on the Hustings.
That Man is profoundly unpopular in the Commonwealth and after yesterday all the questions will sooner or later land on impeachment no matter how much you squeal on and on about fake indians and tax cuts.
As a matter of fact you can cut that Indian Crap entirely if you are nominated, it'll only be a cue for Warren to start calling you "The Apprentice"....A word to the wise is sufficient, forget what Howie Carr is telling you.

Wow check this out...

someone is making a comprehensive case Against Governor Charlie "Lumpy" Baker on line, this is a good resource by which to make a case for a change in the corner office come November.  What I like is, they aren't for anyone, they are simply making a case against Lumpy, and piling up the necessary ordinance.
Health to all their efforts!

You know the Primary Season is at least upon us when

I have to take myself OFF "Barbara L'Italien for Congress" mailing list as I don't live in her notional congressional district and I can just tell she's about to go to three emails a day right thru primary night.
Indeed suddenly the local news hour is clogged with gawd-awful adverts some using that ghastly condescending narrator y'know the one I mean the one that drips with hatred for democracy itself...
Its enough to make me vote FOR Question One simply to spite that unctuous voiceover!

BTW good luck to any GOP Senate Nominee who wants to run this fall as Donald Trump's "Apprentice", polls indicate the President is hated by a majority of the Commonwealth's citizenry.  But then I suspect all those jobbers are looking to make a sufficiently obscenely unpleasant spectacle off themselves to warrant a soft touch gig in DC after the election.

Just as I've long predicted

the decay and deterioration of the Alewife Red Line Station garage has forced that structure's closure this weekend for inspection & renovations.  This after a chunk of the roof fell on someone's car on Wednesday.
This has been a long time coming, the Alewife Garage exudes an air of dangerous dilapidation, there are holes in the floor that allow one to observe pedestrians on the level below, the dedicated exit ramp is a vast checkerboard of exposed rebar, temporary hydraulic pillars hold up the roof in ominous places...the joint feels in every way like a disaster waiting to happen.
I strongly doubt it'll be open for business on Monday, fixing said garage is gonna cost $$$ and take time with bad ripple effects on everyone's commute from Boston up into New Hampshire (it was a favored parking spot for inter-state commuters believe me).
Meanwhile what is Charlie Baker doing? Formally announcing his candidacy for re-election touting all his successes....and as usual staying silent about bad news.
Our one hope is that its an election year and if a dedicated allocation of state funds is needed to renovate or even replace the garage, Charlie will probably sign it, he'd sign a leaf that blew in from a window if it would smooth his path to reelection.

Charlie Baker has decided

To start running campaign commercials on TV during the Dawg Daze of August, predictably passive aggressive he's done it thru some bullshit PAC no one has ever heard of, until now. The adverts themselves are upbeat "happy horseshit" in every way, decorously declining to note that Lumpy is a republican and making the imcumbent governor the veritiable source of soft cooling breezes and gentle rainfall amidst droughts.

Its an old play from an even older playbook, "run to the center like a rat in a firestorm" it worked for Weld, Cellucci and it seems to be Baker's "brilliant strategem".

Ho Hum....

It works great by the way, as long as you don't recall that the MBTA is wheezing like an old derelict on life support or that the State Police is being investigated by the Feds, something Lumpy is monitoring by seemingly anxiously scanning the Boston Globe every day or that the governor probably has never given up his utopian fantasy of privatizing public education behind the electorate's back.

Other than that, everything is shipshape....

The TSA has some

elaborate metric cued by everything from travel history, financial transactions to general twitchiness that activates covert surveillance by a team of agents, who sometimes actually fly along with the mark,  undercover....
Its called "The Quiet Skies Program", you wish they could put all this superfluous effort into quieting squawling infants in Coach, they'd get better results maybe...
My Ghod, some spectrumy programmer wrote the code on behalf of a paranoid administrator for an agency with seemingly little to do save shadowing passengers at random!
Its akin to the Arlington PD arresting every tenth person to walks past police headquarters on grounds  that 10% of the population abuses crystal meth!
This is all the earmarks of bureaucratic mission creep from an agency seemingly that doesn't have enough to do....

Bolton versus Putin...

John Bolton wants war with Iran, a notional conflict I am sure he defines as a cakewalk (he is wrong it'll be Iraq x 10 but who listens to me huh?), so of course the President he serves uses Block Capitals to Threaten Tehran on Twitter.
On the other hand, Putin doesn't want war with Iran since he is doing a land office business with said regime so it comes down to which puppeteer controls the Trump_Strings long enough to implement their cherished policy?  My money is on Putin, he has something perfectly appalling on Trump to compel such disgusting groveling behavior from the President  at Helsinki.
The constitution advises impeachment for "high crimes and misdemeanors" but nowhere does it mention the unique circumstance of a US President being him or herself a self destructive menace to national security. I suppose the implied corrective is the 25th Amendment, but Pence et al, don't have the guts to pull the trigger on option otherwise they'd a tossed Trump out somewhere around the time of the "stable genius" kerfluffle.
Which brings us back to Square One, which is pretty much where we always are with Trump, as for war with Iran I doubt it'll come off, so far with all his threats and tirades in chronological order the only persons he's successfully managed to hurt are unarmed parents and children at our southern border. North Korea still has Nukes, China is doing business world wide and Iran will likely abide for better and or worse.

The Boston Sunday Globe's Idea of Voter Suppression...

is to run a big frontpage article exhaustively detailing Governor Charlie "Lumpy" Baker's allegedly liberal record and contrasting it with the paleo-conservatism that characterizes the rest of the GOP.
And it is true, that the legislature has had some success imposing liberal policies on this admin (nowhere near enough IMHO but I digress), but its plainly oblivious that Baker would himself be a far more conservative governor if the legislature didn't bird-dog him.
In other words that may give Baker the pleasing appearance of moderation and liberal impulses but it also means you have to watch him every second.
Just remember Charlie likes his spreadsheets to add up to "privatization" whether or not he can impose said policy or not.
Nope, the Globe ran this piece largely to reconcile moderates, marginal democrats and independents to Baker's presumed apoetheosis in November and to make it that much more difficult for democrats to activate their base.
And all because the Globe continues to collectively delude itself there is a moderate strain of voters in the GOP who can be appealed to, and negotiated with...
And Morrissey Boulevard will go on believing that right up to the moment when they are all arrested and deported to a Labor Camp in the Northeastern Kingdom of Vermont.

"Why Die for Montenegro?"

Or so The President seemed to imply in a recent interview where he literally thought that Montenegro's innate aggressiveness could easily drag NATO into World War III.
Well two things have been on display with Trump for the last week or so, his visceral hatred for NATO (how he'd love to tweet out some provocation that would leave the alliance on the high road to annihilation) and his odd preference for the tyranny of Vladimir Putin.
Donald Trump is in some ways the creature of the corrupt falangist intellectuals who are skilled enough to stroke his fragile ego. In the case of his NATO animus Trump is more or less advocating a world of racially homogenous homelands that somehow compete and somehow cooperate with all the innate integrity of New York Real Estate Developers.
Its a crazy idea, courtesy Steve Bannon mostly but it is Trump's entirely utopian alternative to NATO.
As for Putin, well, Trump and his worst and most bloodthirsty supporter like the Russian Dictator because he is exactly the sort of violent homophobic reactionary autocrat THEY wish they could install in the USA.
Another utopian notion, albeit and dark one...but there you have it No NATO and a US Autocrat thats the New Vision to paraphrase William Blake. My only question is, what the hell is it like to have rational opponents?
I think I've forgotten.