Fox News?

Scott Brown is allegedly negotiating with Fox News for a contributor's slot. THAT is the former state senator's big post electoral idea?? A cush gig with the cable news network that is little more than a welfare program for washed up conservative hacks?? You read news like this and begin to wonder if Scott really did simply get lucky in 2010...skipping off to Fox News and part time phony baloney job with some law firm is hardly the sinecure that befits a leader in exile. Moreover as David Bernstein has pointed out, these are the sort of commitments that quietly rule out any statewide political plans thru 2014. So maybe just maybe the curtain has fallen abruptly on the "Scott Brown Era", a Giant Slayer and a Future President in 2010, a porch climber and a jobber in 2013.

I don't do this too often

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

The Governor of Maryland has called out the National Guard

to deal with the project damages inflicted by Hurricane Sandy.

Does this mean that Colonel Scott Brown (AKA the Junior Senator from Massachusetts and Wall Street's own Great White Hope) will be "Called to the Colors"and have to take up his action station manning the pumps in the basement of the Calvert County Court House??

Scott Brown collected a $10K

campaign contribution from the infamous "compounding pharmacy" at the center of a deadly meningitis outbreak.
He also signed a "bipartisan letter" to the DEA making the usual premature deregulatory noises...

I get the impression that if a $10K campaign contribution was on the line Scott Brown would happily sign a leaf that blew thru his open window, plague or no plague.

Scott Brown thinks

that poor people should not be encouraged to vote.
This is a pretty blatantly Augustan notion, but a sorts of democracy-hating proposals are very freely bruited about and even written into law these days.
I blame the Bush v. Gore Supreme Court decision, it made vote suppression (previously the favored option of Argentine Juntas) sexy again.
Scott Brown, (R-Massachusetts, no really!) goes the whole mishaugas one better, these days thanks to the covert power of redistricting, politicians get to select their constituents, now Scott Brown wants to select just who gets to vote at all.
Pretty wretched stuff for a guy who has been uneasily tracking back to the center all year long, but we should take it as a good indicator of the sort of turnout concerns that must be at the center of his campaign.

Last Tuesday

I facetiously suggested that given the laxity of gun laws in abutting states, Massachusetts might be well served to set up inspection points along the border to forestall the movement of out of state assault weapons into the Commonwealth.
And now a scant six days later the Boston Globe runs the numbers and comes up with a lot of out of state firearms being used in Bay State Crimes.
So that proves, it, the Boston Globe is exactly six days behind this, The Little Blog That Cried.
I have a few disparate points to share, if the majority of guns commissioned for use in crimes enacted inside the Commonwealth were registered out of state...then what is cheaper?
1) Border control posts and roadblocks?
or
2) Metal detectors and armed security in our malls and movie theaters?

In six days maybe the Globe can run those numbers.
My only other thought is that Scott Brown's stance on assault weapons (a ban thereof is up to the fifty individual states) is the sort of subtle nuanced and otherwise useless policy prescription that characterizes someone who wants to run for President someday.
I say go for it Scott....

Meanwhile back in Massachusetts...

Former State Senator Scott Brown's big idea to prevent future gun violence is to leave the notion of an assault weapon's ban up to the individual states.
So....lets try a little thought experiment, suppose New Hampshire decided that public safety was best served by allowing assault weapons to be sold thru vending machines in their public high schools....
What good would be a ban on assault weapons in Massachusetts...Save only as a specific potential punishment handed down by a judge?
Such a ban would be useless...unless of course we set up border checkpoints or something.
But then sheer uselessness constitutes almost all of Scott Brown's thinking as a general rule.
Scott wants to leave the assault weapons ban up to the already battered and cash strapped states, woe betide the man who wants to hand his National Guard pension over to the Commonwealth's treasury, that would ellicit a blast they could hear in Colorado no doubt.

There is a biiiig front page article in

Today's Globe detailing Former State Senator Scott Brown's bonhomie with his fabled "House Full of Women" (Wife, two daughters or is it three...can't keep track, daughters seem to be preferred issue of US politicians for some reason)...The man fairly lactates freely in this piece.
Well building up some appeal for female voters by depicting oneself as a humble co-equal partner in a marriage, is an old GOP political ploy.
While said politician is hugging his wife and driving his kids to field hockey practice he is usually simultaneously throwing all other women under the policy bus.
The nadir of this ploy is self evident, as Brown famously voted against HCR in the US Senate thus potentially denying care to millions of faceless female citizens but then turns around and blatantly uses HCR's own generous tenets to keep daughter Ayla covered under his own plan.
As Humble Elias has said before, hypocrisy works, especially for Scott Brown. However at the very least, let us try to distinguish between the man's devotion to his own family and his blatant disregard for the woes and needs everyone else's family.

Y'know IF

the Boston Globe is gonna grant Scott Brown a platform (as they did in today's paper) from which to rail against the very HCR he voted for as State Senator, against as US Senator and currently uses to cover his ne'er do well daughter Ayla, then at the very least a simultaneous partisan response ought to be printed.
I have not link to offer, for some reason said screed is not available on line, but 2012 is an election year and the Globe ought not to be granting candidates for re-election free publicity on the op-ed page.

You know...

It comes as no surprise to me that Scott Brown, having voted FOR the President's banking reform package, inundated the Treasury Department with requests to water down the resulting regulations to the advantage of his many many backers among the speculator classes of Wall Street.
Keep in mind this is the same Scott Brown who voted against Health Care Reform and then blithely enrolled his own Hollywood Celebrity Daughter in the extended insurance program without a second thought.
The man is nothing if not a chiseler and a bit of a hypocrite.
Well Dick Nixon was pretty slippery too in his time, but let me remind my readers that the US Senate Is Full of slippery characters whose base hypocrisy is no bar to higher office and public acclaim. Merely exposing Scott's lack of character isn't gonna be enough to deny him another term...Even if the Globe and Herald could ever get enough to the Cherokee Snarkage, which they cannot.
Franky at this point we are all Cherokees, All waiting for the Great White Fathers on Wall Street to figure out what is to be done with us all.

Apparently,

Former State Senator Scott Brown drove all the way to South Boston (I guarantee you he had to use GPS to find it) to proclaim himself The Underdog in the upcoming US Senate Race.
Yeah thass right, an Underdog with fifteen million dollars in campaign funds at his disposal, raised in less than two years and most of it from the Usual Suspects on Wall Street.
Underdog indeed.
But then, all this proves is that Brown is a fervent reader of the Chimes at Midnight, after all Humble Elias predicted last month that would try to revert to his 2010 status as the scrappy challenger.
It is a pretty brazen move and a good indicator for whoever ends up being Brown's main opponent in the general election next fall.

"You Stay Classy there

Scott Brown".

Partei Crashers

5oo protesters "crashed" Former State Senator Scott Brown's fundraiser last night.
Cannily they tweaked him about jobs, which are, in the opinion of Humble Elias the very millstone that will sink Scott Brown for sure.
Too bad it wasn't five thousand protesters...and not for nothin' but Scott Brown has time during his "jobs tour" to do a big money fundraiser on the harbor?
Class all the way Scott, Class all the way.

Former State Senator Scott Brown

traveling the Commonwealth on a "jobs tour", he is apparently investigating persistent rumors that his constituents in fact need jobs to survive.
Q&A with the General public is not scheduled at these events, and as usual, our Junior Senator avoids contact with the working press the way a vampire declines close congress with a crucifix.
So all in all yet another fake-ass bit of nothing from our own Scott Brown.
I'd love to find out Scottie's stance on the Verizon strike, since he is all in a lather to talk about "jobs" with his "constituents".
Of course it occurs to me that this vacuous meaningless tour is Scott Brown's idea of building up his props as "Senator Pot-Hole" because it is either that or being known as Kentucky's Third Senator.

Fix this question in your minds

"Just how many jobs as Junior Senator Scott Brown brought to Massachusetts or prevent from leaving Massachusetts?"

And on that note, The Chimes at Midnight is officially on vacation, all posting herein will be ubiquitous and capricious until further notice.

So Former State Senator Scott Brown wants

to do his Army National Guard training in Afghanistan this year?
Bluntly put he should not go.
Right now, the diplomatic winds are at our back in that part of the world, the situation is evolving hour to hour and we should not introduce into that theater of war a "high value target" who wants merely to "study the situation".
He sits on the Senate Armed Service Committee thats a nice peaceful billet from which to "study the situation" sez Humble Elias.
Moreover he has already gone tear-assing all over the nation for his damn book tour howzabout he stay at home for once and ohhh I dunno maybe call a press conference and explain his stance on the Ryan Budget in clear and concise language?
Enough of this grandstanding already, just do your damn job Scott.

I am glad someone in the DA's office

took the time to read Scott Brown's book and try to track down this alleged child molester in Sandwich.
Because if today's Globe is to be believed, the alleged perp still works at "Camp Good News".
Okay this is waa-ay past old news and a matter for the attention of the police and the District Attorney's office, health to all their endeavors.
I do fear horrific scandalous things in the offing...I'm glad other people spoke up named names and called the cops.
Too bad it too so long.

Former State Senator Scott Brown

(per the Boston Herald) has warned the Commonwealth's democrats not to "fight dirty" in next year's senatorial campaign.
You mean like demanding repeatingly that Scott Brown produce his real birth certificate?

Would that be construed as fighting dirty?

I'd be satisfied with his last legit IQ test quite frankly.

Ah but we can't have that can we? Dirty politics I mean.
Frankly I don't think Scott Brown knows real dirty politics from a can of shinola...

A Fifth Plank...

to my notional and entirely obscure democratic senatorial platform for 2012, would deal entirely in fostering investment in green energy, wind farms, solar applications and the like.
This situation in Japan requires that we radically rethink our energy mix here in the USA.
On this topic there is some strong continuity between what Massachusetts is doing to foster renewable energy resources and what the county ought to be doing.

And besides I guarantee you that this is an issue about which Scott Brown knows exactly nothing and likely cannot get up to speed on it any time soon.
Again I ask you, green or dirty, just how many jobs has Scott Brown brought to the Commonwealth or kept in the Commonwealth since he took office last January?
The answer is damned few, but that boy-o is still the toast of Wall Street all the same.

Fifty Two Percent

That is where Former State Senator Scott Brown is currently polling vis a vis the 2012 US Senate election.
Now, to Fox25 News that sounds like a pretty strong mandate, the state's democrats on the other hand think that there is some opportunity there to unseat Brown next year.
Well...only one of them can be right in the weary wicked end.
***
Given the fluid nature of the race, at this point I'm less interested in who is running and more interested in what will be said.
Beating Scott Brown is going to require ideas, good ones that reach out to a winning majority.
So with all due modesty I'd like to offer a few ideas for the consideration of my readership (all seven of you).
1.) Lower the Medicare qualification age to fifty five. Medicare is a popular program, trust me it outpolls all the private plans out there by a wide margin. Expanding the pool of Medicare recipients ought to be presented as a "health care cost pre-emption" and to a lesser extent an impetus to increased retirement savings. Its a "one card" one off single payer plan that works and works well. Lets put it to work for the working man I say.
2.) Fully electrify the north-east's rail freight lines. Yeah I know, rail travel has few friends in Washington DC, There are ten lobbyists for every member of congress when it comes to polluting industries, but high speed rail?
They get bupkiss.
Electrifying the rail freight network will take hundreds of UPS & Fedex trucks off the road, reduce the regional carbon footprint, cut transport costs at a time when prices are increasing and it will provide some practical heavy-iron type jobs stimulus. It is the sort of investment we ought to be making during hard times in order to hasten back prosperity all the sooner. This is, in sum a good deal for the Massachusetts' consumer.
3.) And while we are at it, lets get that North-South rail link done. Its a cost savings down the line and yet another way to get some local job-stimulus going.
4.) If corporations are people, and the Supreme Court assures us they have free speech rights just like the rest of us, then those self-same corporations ought to be liable for a piece of the ordinary person's tax burden.
Say fifteen percent off the top for social security. This'll help pay for the above expansion in Medicare coverage and remind all and sundry that is corporation's are people then they'll have to pony up just like people. I see this as a hard populist measure that'll create some consequences for the corporatization of politics.
***
What I'm after here is a program that is progressive in scope, populist in tone and aimed at relieving financial burdens on the working and middle classes either thru job creation or revisions in tax policy.
In all keep it simple and aimed squarely at those two groups...And then ask yourself just how many jobs has Scott Brown brought home to Massachusetts since January of 2010?