Charlie Baker piles in...

With a hearty & manly squeal of "ME TOO!!", Charlie Baker, former Secretary of Whatever in the Weld Admin, has announced for Governor.

Charlie wants to make the state "more friendly for business" there at least he has a superlative record. Back when Weld was the darling of the Globe's Op Ed page Charlie and the admin did their best to ensure that Bechtel Parsons got very friendly treatment indeed from the Commonwealth as the cost of the Big Dig went up and up and up.

Indeed, Charlie kept his lips zipped as Bill Weld and Penniless Paul Cellucci went claghorning all over the state insisting the Big Dig's costs were under control and that Bechtel Parsons as prime contractor thereon was the honestest outfit going.

Only the Glory Days of Dick Leche in Louisiana can beat a record like that.

***

Ah but this is mere snarkage, in larger sense, there seems to be a contradiction at the heart of Baker's platform he promises to do everything that Governor Patrick has been forced to do to keep the budget in line but do it painlessly and with a tax cut and all the usual rubbish thrown on top as well.

Like I said, a contradiction...

If it is a Sunday after a

setback for the democrats then it is time for one of Joanie Vennochi's patented "death of liberalism" columns.

This time she has decided to throw the entire Kennedy family into the cauldron and weep crocodile tears about the "sundown of a dream", such rubbish.

I think she has written some two dozen other columns along the exact same lines since Bush seized power in 2001.

Joanie perfectly exemplifies the columnista dogma that proclaims that when liberals win it is an accidental aberration, when conservatives rally it is the leading edge of the inevitable historic backlash...One that will crush all liberals like insects.

In other words, nothing new from Joanie, the usual personality driven snarkage and defeatism, and tomorrow she'll go on the Jeff Santos show and make nicey nice because Joanie wants a radio berth of her own someday.

Same old same old.

Let the Groveling Begin...

Brian McGrory, not three weeks into his new/old gig as a columnist for the Boston Globe has (right on schedule) found a new Moderate Republican Independent to worship.
Ghod it is like he wants to have Scott Brown's baby or something.
 Well these pundit types are fickle, they groove on one hero then another, Brian was once Mitt Romney's most stalwart apologist, remember that.
***
Otherwise the I-word, that phantom position of equivalence between the democrats and republicans (which is naught but a comfy velvet closet for GOP marks) will get a lot of play in the fall campaign here in the Commonwealth. You will be hearing it a lot from Charlie Baker as the year progresses. Governor Patrick should take heed. 
***
BTW has anyone seen Charlie's web-ads over on Boston.com, he looks terrible! Blotchy skin, zombie pale and his handlers need to tell him to stop flapping his wrists when he talks, he isn't Oprah after all.  And what the hell does he know about job creation anyway? Just exactly jack-shit sez Humble Elias. His plan seems to be give away enough tax cuts to the same financier class that got us in this fix and then wait for the utopia to trickle down.
Sheer genius, only California can beat a record like that for evasion and visionary rubbish.

***
Oh and Humble Elias wants to note, apparently Scott Brown did call on Mayor Menino after the election, so technically he did make a stop in Suffolk county, my bad.
They must've met and conferred at Hynes Auditorium though, what other venue could have comfortably fit  those two bloated egos?

Scott's victory lap..

Apparently, Scott Brown is taking three days off to drive around the state and thank all his new constituents for the votes etc.
It is an odd itinerary to say the least as he seems to skip over Middlesex and Suffolk counties entirely.
Seems to me he ought to make some time to drive up to Derry New Hampshire and thank all those voters for swarming down into Massachusettst to make his rallies look so big and energetic.
***
Okay all snarkage aside, if Citizen Brown was interested in something else other than wallowing in self congratulation he could drop by the office of the Veteran's Agent for the Town of Arlington and maybe have a chat about all these young veterans that are entering civilian life these days. Failing that he could just zip up the road to the Bedford VA's LTC unit and say hello to the brave & elderly men therein dwelling. That would be, by the way, the same VA hospital George Bush Jr tried to shut down back in the day...

When the arrogant and the stupid

have some measure of success, even if it is by accident, they inevitably move on to complete debacles like this hilarious little incident.

If James O'Keefe hadn't had all that wingnut notoreity on Youtube et al, he'd a never attempted outright trepass & infiltration.
Well, I say the solution is simple, when a young kid like Messr. O'Keefe is weird, proud, insolent & criminally inclined, the best solution is for him to hear the crash of iron.
A few years in the chow line at Leavensworth will straighten his ass out...He will meet new people from all walks of life, a veritable 24-7 therapeutic program.

Okay dis is just plain meshugginah....

Now the god-damned Red Mass Group has been added to the roster of Lexington Rep Jay Kaufman's Open House tomorrow.
The Red Mass Group?
THE RED MASS GROUP!
Those freaks all hear voices!!
What am I, chopped liver???
One of the longest running liberal blogs in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, six days a week since 2003, seven years in the making, from the Banks of the Vistula to Glory...and I'm not invited???
Dozens of other bloggers, have gone the way of the passenger pigeon, but Humble Elias soldiers on!
***
There is nothing left to do to combat this undeserved state of obscurity and derision but to Think Big Thoughts and leave the rest to fate.
***
Let me just reiterate though, to Messrs Quinn and Eno, the snack table at these Open House events is usually pretty sparse...Just sayin' thass all.

So the State Legislature wants to outlaw bullying?

Does that mean WEEI and Howie Carr would have to cease and desist from broadcasting on election day?

State Representative Jay Kaufman is having the

is bringing in the Blue Mass Group to discuss "Blogging: Political Discourse in Cyber Space" on Thursday.
Hey Jay I'm one town over man...What About Humble Elias??
I can yammer on and on and on about the New Politics of the Internet with the best of them!
Whats da Blue Mass Group got that I ain't got??
Hell I beat them "pre-eminent left-leaning"boyos to the local liberal blogging scene by six months!
It is an OUTRAGE!

Overlooked again!
***
I tellya, never woulda happened if Mark Roosevelt had gotten in.
***
Well, I rant and I rave, but lets face it, if yer gonna describe Governor Romney's smile as resembling that of a "oleaginous & chronic masturbator" then you must be prepared to be on polite company's decline list.
And so here I stand my lonely watch on the ramparts of civilization, alone again.
***
Anyway, Rep Kaufman is a thrifty soul, so the hors d'œuvres at these Open Houses tend to be a bit skimpy, just a word of advice to my brethren over at the Blue Mass Group.
Maybe I should start selling hoodies with the Chimes at Midnight logo on them?


Maybe I should dream up a logo first....
Then people will love me!

This article

in today's Boston Globe is glib, condescending and slightly hateful.

It perpetuates a cherished conservative delusion that liberals are outside alleged "mainstream". So off to Amherst and Cambridge some Globe stringers sped to collect enough quotes to create an illusionary aclimate of isolation and fear among Massachusetts liberals.
Honestly if I was a resident of either municipality, I'd be outraged.
Shit I live atop a small mountain in Menotomy, communing only with the spirits of Air and Fire, and I'm outraged.
One good loss by the local democrats and that is all the signal the Globe needs to start groveling and toadying...sick demented and typical.

I thought...

(per Fox News) that Scott Brown's election was supposed to send the stock market "soaring"?

This is soaring??

I'd hate to find out what will happen to the market when and if the other shoe drops on our new Junior Senator.

Oh and BTW

The Supreme Court has seen fit to completely re-corporatize US politics, won-derful news.
Just once, I'd like to see a decision like this operate against Big Money Interests by way of the Iron Law of Unintended Consequences, but that is of course, wishful thinking of the Scot Lehigh variety.
No what this underscores is the very high stakes in play the next time there is a vacancy in the Supreme Court, especially if it is a conservative's seat that is to be filled.
Thanks to Scot "My daughter's are available" Brown's election, that fight in the Senate will no doubt be a nasty one, don't look for any compromise in that fight, and don't depend on any phantom collection of moderates to save the day either.

Kudos to the Deathless Spartans

who on a lash minute lashed together GOTV effort gave Martha Coakley 65% of the vote in (Romantic) Menotomy. They are amazing, they may be defeated, but they are never beaten, they have much to be proud of even under the present circumstance. There are no better democrats no more effective progressives anywhere in the Commonwealth.

***
Meanwhile it seems clear, turn out is destiny, something Governor Patrick must needs to ponder.

BTW have we elected some sort of sick freak as "our" Senator?
Who speaks thusly in the hour of victory? Someone with issues says Humble Elias.

Post Mortem

that could have gone better now couldn't it?








***



A couple of things went very wrong yesterday quite obvious, but they started going wrong some three months or more ago.



I think Martha Coakley fatally underestimated the threat from Scott Brown, she let slip a lead (although it was probably never so lavish as fifteen points). Moreover the state party clearly did not anticipate that Brown's candidacy would attract so much out of state money. The state democrats were late with their ground game (although they made an almighty effort at the last minute to be sure). There were very serious defficiencies up and down the line here (lack of signage, unmemorable TV adverts, poor party organization at the precinct level the list goes on), most of which was derived from a sense of complacency, well complacency doesn't win elections.



I firmly believe that this might have been a sixty-forty blowout if President Obama hadn't gotten the base fired up on Sunday. Likely though, the spin will be that this is a Huge Humiliation for the Administration.



However, this was Martha Coakley's race to lose and much as it pains me to write this she damn well found several good ways to lose it.



Moreover, it is time to speak plainly about a barely whispered topic, there is a real climate of sub rosa sexism in Bay State Politics for all our liberal bona fides. In the past ten years the guberatorial hopes of Shannon O'Brien, Scary Kerry Healey and Jane Jingle Money Swift have all come to naught and now we can add Martha Coakley's senatorial ambitions to the list...Anyone else see a bipartisan pattern here?



I think it is fatal for any woman to fun for terminal higher office in Massachusetts without a very well thought out game plan to short circuit said climate of sexism, I hate to have to write that but it is true. There is a gender gap in state politics and it prevents female candidates from moving up, period end of story.



Whoever can short circuit said gender gap can go the distance, right now though, it is a serious problem that prevents good women from moving into the right positions.



I tend to think, Brown will be a short lived phenom akin to Mitt Romney (who looked formidable in 2003 but had flamed out completely by 2005), he faces the electorate again in 2012 and likely will not have the same financial resources or out of state volunteers to draw on.



But once again we faces challenges from within and without, let us bend ourselves to the tasks at hand be equal to our times.

Class unto the Last (Part 3)

Some outfit called "Rightmarch" seems to be robo-calling democrats asking them to vote for "Joseph Kennedy" "A Name We Can Trust".
Humble Elias can only infer that whoever paid for these robo-calls is trying to bamboozle a few dems into voting for the libertarian candidate for Senate on the basis of his name similarity to former Democratic congressman Joseph P. Kennedy.
This is normally a cheap stupid stunt, but in a close race it could pay dividends for the GOP.
The only other question is, who is paying for these robo-calls? The Massachusetts Libertarian Party doesn't have the scratch to buy the  ninety nine cent happy meal at McDonalds, let alone a program of taped messages inexplicably targeted at democrats.
There is but one solution to all this chicanery, stand your ground, Vote For Coakley!

Class unto the Last...(part two)

Check this out, Scott "Beefcake" Brown laughs like a barbarian when a supporter makes an obscene suggestion vis a vis Martha Coakley.
Scott has been running up quite a tally these last few weeks, teabagger outbursts, strange birther ideations and lets not forget his wingnut bona fides.
***
But, in a few hours the matter passes into the hands of the electorate, all I can do is remand myself into the ranks of the Almighty Spartans and let fate make it's choice.
Progress or reaction, the choice is simple, stark and obvious.
Vote for Coakley.

Class Unto the Last...

Scott "Beefcake" Brown gets some out of state help to make his Worcester rally look like a monster this weekend.  So let us be sure of one thing, Scott will have a ground game on Tuesday, and it's taken from Mitt Romney's playbook who had lots of out of state "volunteers" to work the polls on election day 2002.

My quotable guest blogger for today...

is none other than the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Junior, it is a bit of a zinger really, but entirely relevant to today's world.
So take it away Doc and thanks for all the freedom, we will try to keep an eye on it for you.


"It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important."

Sitting by the telephone tonight waiting for my

robo-call from Lyndon Baines Johnson on behalf to Citizen Coakley's candidacy for the US Senate.
Indeed why not?
Everyone else has called me from the leader of the Free World down to the Deputy Register of Deeds...Why not LBJ just because he is ALLEGEDLY dead?
***
All kidding aside, I'll be you could produce a fair digital facsimile of LBJ's drawl and use it for all kinds of political mischief.
Ah but right now all I am interested in, is taking a sledge hammer to the glass ceiling in Massachusetts politics and putting Martha Coakley in the US Senate.

If this is what it is like to live thru the New Hampshire

Primary as a voter up there, then the Granite State can keep their First In the Nation Primary, they can smoke it for all I care.
My grey haired old mother has had two push polls inflicted on her so far, and I hear that Pat Boone's voice can be heard on anti-marriage equality robo calls.
Hell some falangist outfit called "The National Organization for Marriage" tried to call me last night but I of course came out swinging for marriage equality with chimpanzees and they quickly gave up on me.
Scott Brown is really a baldfaced hypocrite to be accusing Martha Coakley about consorting with lobbyists when he has blackshirt muthas like this in his corner.

Scott Brown wants "outsiders" to steer clear of the Senate election here

in Massachusetts, by that of course he means President Obama. Of course as soon as makes this plea he turns around and stumps the North End with Rudy Guiliani, who is apparently suffering from some form of dementia, he actually forgot last week that 9/11 happened while George Bush was President.

An Endorsement:

The Chimes at Midnight proudly endorses Martha Coakley for the United States Senate in Tuesday's special election to fill Teddy Kennedy's seat.
The AG has shown leadership in her current role, she has an agenda that'll benefit all of us and the sort of skill set that could make her a powerhouse in the US Senate.
And if and when she wins, a very big glass ceiling will come crashing down in the Commonwealth with an almighty & lovely popping and shattering sound.
Martha Coakley in the US Senate is a giant step forward for all of us.

***
Scott Brown on the other hand is a step backwards, I'm not even sure any more if he'd be a good senatorial fit for Wyoming.

WE have four days left to save the Commonwealth and save the Country, let us not waste them, don't play the media's despair game, work work work! We Can Win This Thing if we do not waver!
Coakley in the US Senate, Now is the Time, This is the Moment!

Pat Robertson sez

that Haiti got destroyed by an Earthquake as punishment for the "deal with the devil" they struck in 1799 in return for infernal assistance in running out Napoleon's army.
I kid you not he really said this, lookit the video.

Y'know all snarkage aside, this is a profoundly childish thing for a grown adult man to utter, a man who is educated, wealthy and even worldly in his own fashion.
It is the sort of opinion that gets whispered by eight year old boys from behind the garage. That a man truly thinks and shares it with a TV audience sans batting an eye is very sobering indeed. It recalls the sort of rubbish that William Jennings Bryan spouted when on the witness stand during the famous 1925 "monkey trial. He tried to convince a jury that Man was Not a Mammal by classification.
But this deal with the devil mishaugas is if anything even more idiotic...

Nothing left to do but leave the thoughts of children behind and give to the American Red Cross.

Let Humble Elias suspend mere politics for a fleeting moment

and urge my audience to give generously to the American Red Cross as they are moving heaven and earth to get real relief to earthquake ravaged Haiti.
I realize that my audience is small, but whether you come here to sneer or to cheer, we are a feeling species at the core, and a catastrophic event like the Haitian quake ought to evoke our sympathies.

Last night I managed to see

the Coakley campaign's "attack ad" against their GOP rival Scott Brown. It is to say the least a tame thing that mostly identifies Beefcake Scott as a conservative republican and lists his heartfelt opinions on issues of the day.
I mean ignore the ominous music and graphics, this ain't no "Daisy Commercial" believe me. And yet this morning, there was Scott Brown's counter advert on the TV in which he whines piteously that "Martha Coakley's negative ads are wrong and go too far".
Good grief all they do is remind the voters that Scott is in the end a Republican more amenable to say Wyoming than the Commonwealth...and that gets his goat??
Thin skinned little bitch isn't he?

And another thing...Martha Coakley didn't start with the negative adverts, groups amenable to the candidacy of the right honorable Scott Beefcake Brown have clouded the airwaves with denunciations of the Attorney General. If she responds in kind who is Scott to protest?
Imagine if the dems went after him Willy Horton style? Scott would likely fall over in a swoon.

Am I to understand...

that in last night's senatorial debate, Citizen Scott Brown (GOP candidate for Teddy Kennedy's vacant seat) actually made the argument that the only women in the Commonwealth who ought to have access to the "morning after pill" on an emergency basis are his own two daughters?
Everyone else can go stuff it sez Beefcake Scott, but Ayla and Whozis to the top of the line (hypothetically speaking)?
Well, inadvertently Brown has touched on the sheer narcissism that colors the abortion debate. By that Humble Elias means that some of the most die hard anti-abortionists will still qualify their own opposition in their own minds and in their own lives.
They can't rule out malign happenstance so it seems, Scott Brown least of all.

The Globe reports (as always)...

some daunting numbers for Governor Patrick's re-election. They don't seem so insuperable to me though.
He is gonna need to run as an underdog and like Harry Truman though to win this thing. So far he is getting the three way race he needs, but some progress on job creation is required and the Governor is gonna need to get on his hind legs and bellow with regards to his considerable accomplishments.
Well "Have at it Virgie" as the late Marshall Dodge used to say.
***

Meanwhile Charlie Baker's chief qualification for office seems to be his fundraising prowess and the wrists ghod gave a Muppets operator.

Dishonesty is the Best Policy...

Someone, who is awfully anxious to foist Scott "Beefcake" Brown onto Massachusetts as a US Senator, is doing a nasty little push-poll on his behalf tonight.
My grey haired old mother got a call tonight from some half-mumbled polling firm that proceeded to "remind" the Coakley-leaning respondent that the AG wants to kill babies and bankrupt the universe thru the current health care bill.
Mi Madre hung up with the utmost indignation.
***
Class all the way Scott, class all the way. He can bellow and coo righteously in the debates all he wants, but when Citizen Brown thinks the Commonwealth's back is turned he is a different fellow isn't he?
***
Anyway I don't get Brown's stance on the current health care reform bill in the US Senate, he sez he'd vote to kill if elected. But he voted for the same exact bill for the citizens of Massachusetts not two years ago.
Why won't he give to the rest of nation what he was perfectly willing to bestow on the Commonwealth in 2006?
Well, to put it bluntly, Scott Brown is a devious, narcissistic & dishonest hack who couldn't care less about what good he did in 2006 if it impedes his path to power in 2009...That is why.

The Bill of Lading on Scott Brown:

1.) He is a relentless proponent of economic catastrophe in the form of tax-cut give aways to the very same Wall Street Wizards who lead the country into it's current recession.

2.) He all for torturing terrorists, thus placing mere vulgar retribution above intelligence gathering to say nothing of that fast fading anachronism called Justice.

3.)He is a political homophobe (which is the worst kind), took time out of his busy schedule in 2007 to co-sponsor a bill to outlaw gay straight alliances in our high schools. Quite literally Scott wanted to prevent straight teens from befriending gay teens, which is the worst sort of pestering holier than thou, witchburning politics in the opinion of Humble Elias.

4.) He opposes the current Health Care Reform legislation, in fact killing it forms a major plank of Brown's platform. That may be fine for him, Scott has excellent coverage after all but killing said bill is bad news for thirty million of his fellow citizen who nothing to speak of for health insurance.
Scott might make a great US Senator someday, but for Wyoming not Massachusetts.

Only in America...

can a candidate for the US Senate in Massachusetts present himself as the consummate warrior without ever having run a greater risk than a paper cut in the Judge Advocate's office.
And that my friends is Citizen Scott Brown in a nutshell, qualified as a paratrooper, infantry rifleman and in the arcane disciplines of the Quartermasters corps (ALL supremely applicable to front line conditions) and yet somehow despite three wars in eight years Scott has managed to dodge combat service.
Remind you of a certain Air National Guard pilot from Texas at all?
I mean its great that he joined the National Guard and all but it is nothing more than a resume builder for an aspiring politician unless he ever got off his ass and actually did something.
And as of 1-7-10 8:55am all Beefcake Scott seems to have done with his service is polish apples, which is apparently his game plan for the US Senate polish apples to get ahead.

Breaking (HAW!) Has Tim Cahill found a running mate?

Word from Das Red Mass Gruppe is that Tim Cahill (independent candidate for Governor) has found his Lt. Governor candidate in former State Rep from Holliston, Paul Loscocco.
IF it's true then there are some interesting ideological twists in said candidacy (apparently Loscocco is waa-ay more conservative than the Baker-Tisei ticket stapled together. Nevertheless one has to wonder about his fundraising capability in an independent race where money will be a premium.

Update: The Herald confirms it is Loscocco...Waaa-al Ah swan, but at least Citizen Tim avoided the usual Lt. Gubernatorial shenanigans (nominating a filling station night manager, TV weather man or some other chowderhead).
Well it would seem the third party challenge is gonna run hard to the right, be interesting to see what the pace of fundraising is like for the Cahill-Loscocco ticket.

Heh he IS a republican after all

Shit Charlie Baker is supposed to be raising mad phat money in his quest for the governorship.
I'd be shocked if he wasn't quite frankly.
It is the sort of news that deeply impresses newspaper columnists, the Brian McGrorys and Scot Lehighs of the world will be in simpleminded awe of Baker's two million large.
Me?
All I know is that apparently there is big money in lying like a dawg about the true price tag on the Big Dig and stiffing the municipalities for local aid back when Charlie was a toady for Bill Weld.

Priorities:

GOP congressional candidate Allen Quist (who is trying to unseat democrat Tim Walz in Minnesota) has asserted the following:">Allen Quist (who is trying to unseat democrat Tim Walz in Minnesota) has asserted the following:
It's because I, like you, have seen that our country is being destroyed. I mean, this is -- every generation has had to fight the fight for freedom. This is our fight. And this is our time. This is it. Terrorism, yes -- but that's not the big battle. The big battle is in D.C., with the radicals. They aren't liberals, they're radicals. Obama, Pelosi, Walz -- they're not liberals, they're radicals. They are destroying our country. And people all over are figuring that out."
In short, defeating President Obama is more important than the war on terrorism.
Thus it can be inferred by Allen Quist's potential future constituents that their very lives are forfeit in the grand apocalyptic battle to overcome the democrats and their President.
I think the operative term here is "cannon fodder", it doesn't matter how many voters get blown up as long as Allen Quist can tuck it to Obama.
H.L. Mencken once aptly described a sort of mad dog mania that befalls certain politicians as they ineffectually try to lay their hands on the collar of some person or movement they violently despise. So, clearly, Allen Quist is having himself an H.L. Mencken moment on the campaign trail.
I would pay good money to see some competent representative of the punditariat ask Quist at a press conference if terrorism comes in second to partisan insolence, what can casualties is Citizen Quist willing to countenance among his constituents on the road to GOP victory?

Beefcake Scott hearts torture...

Details to be found here.
Y' know, muscle boy there, is in the end, an attorney.
And if an American Attorney can't come up with a single reason to refrain from torturing a suspect then the sheer majesty of the law has hit rock bottom in this man's republic.
For the record, it isn't about treating the suspect with kid gloves or being nice to alleged perps, it is all about the degraded and compromised quality of the info gleaned from said torture.
What d'ye suppose happened at the Big Moscow Purge Trials back in the 1930's? Radek Kamenev and that lot were all tortured into admitting they were in the pay of the Learned Elders of Zion and the British Secret Service and Woolworth's Dime Stores etc etc.

John McCain endorses Scott Brown for the US Senate...

I'm flabbergasted, who knew John McCain could find Massachusetts on a map?
This is Beefcake Scott's idea of a popular GOP heavyweight to buttress his campaign for the US Senate? An angry old wreck who barely cracked forty percent of the vote in Massachusetts in November of '08?
What Sarah Palin wasn't available?
Or is she next week's bid for some news ink?
I don't see why Palin shouldn't endorse Brown, they are pretty much ideological soul-mates, pro-life, genially homophobic, vain and given to utopian tax cut fantasies.
Seems like she is perfect fit really.
Bring in Sarah, Scott, Humble Elias needs the larfs right now.

The definition of Insanity

is replicating the same action over and over with the intense expectation of a different outcome.
Such is the case with GOP senatorial candidate Scott Brown's current anti-recession proposal, more tax cuts aimed at the very financial cohorts that got us into this mess to begin with.
Never mind we just escaped eight years of trying to tax cut our way to Utopia (and ending up on relief all the same), forget we are at war and wars cost money and the very financials that blew us all to hell have learned NOTHING from their former profligacy despite a pricey federal bail out. Nope per Scott Brown Wall Street deserves another chance to raid the Federal treasury!
Another bailout, in the form of a tax cut, I mean talk about homeopathic economics!
Of course, the best Citizen Brown can come up with in his campaign commercials is some footage of JFK pushing his 1962 tax cut. Ah 1962, boom times compared to 2010 when the country (per William F. Buckley) was simply groaning under the weight of a 70% top rate. Well at this point what could Citizen Brown do, I doubt there is a single national republican alive or dead that could do any business at all for him in this Commonwealth. Ronald Reagan could rise from the dead on Boston Common and perform a laying of hands on Scott Brown to nigh universal apathy at this point. So Scott is forced to hide behind the late President Kennedy's tombstone and hand out smudgy pamphlets extolling ideas that were laughable when Gorgeous George was big medicine.
I say keep the money and invest it wisely and forget about Scott Brown he has nothing on offer except bad intentions and worse ideas.

Today's Iran...

is what you end up with when the native equivalent of abortion clinic bombers are allowed to make up all the rules in a society.
In essence, the Mullahs, their dragoons and attendant lackeys get to lie, cheat and steal and then defend those lies with violence.
So right now, despite the ongoing widespread protests, it is all still advantage Government. To date the Mullahs have not wavered in their commitment to shooting, jailing and or terrorizing 1/2 of the population in order to rule the other 1/2 like kings.
As of 9:52am EST the policy of the ruling partei in Tehran is no concessions, no mercy, no back talk.
Therefore in order to win, the opposition has to outlast the regime's commitment to retaining power by violence.
It worked for the Irish (who had their own special brand of violent resistance), the Indians (who went the whole "non violent" route by and large) and to a certain extent it worked for the Jews in Israel in 1948.
So far as Humble Elias can see this strategy is the oppositions' only hope in Tehran.
Nonetheless the regime hasn't flinched and the whole "outlast the bastards" meme is dependent on high expenditures in blood and manpower, sooner or later the cost of demonstrating and confronting may become too high for the disenfranchised.
So right now, it is score Mullahs, the whole thing feels less like the moment of liberation and a lot more like Tienamen Square all over again.
This has implications for US Policy in that our potential negotiating partners are likely to be the least willing to compromise, which will of course, increase tensions in that part of the world. As for Iran the international actor, they can look forward to more diplomatic isolation and economic sanctions and pressure from NGOs...All so the same old assholes can hold onto their phony-baloney jobs hassled the citizens for a few more years.