Thursday, November 29, 2012

It is very nice of the President

to "gift" Mitt Romney with a free lunch in the White House today. The irony should not be lost on anyone least of all the earstwhile GOP Presidential Candidate. Sometimes these interactions don't go well, Carter got treated like a derelict when Reagan came to the White House on a pre-inaugural courtesy call in 1980, but then Reagan was not noted for his generous spirit. Ah but Harvard Law still seems to graduate some sort of gentleman/gentlewoman(so does Annapolis for that fact)...so at the very least the Former Governor of Massachusetts can count on a polite friendly reception.

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

And another thing Senator Kerry...

The office of Secretary of Defense is the most thankless job in the Cabinet, you get blamed for everything and all five hundred members of congress think you are their personal bitch. The SecDef is never ever remembered well no matter how good his or her intentions...controversy dogs them all to the grave and beyond. As for Foggy Bottom, c'mon now, who wants to FOLLOW Hilary Clinton into that gig?? Nuff said. Besides, why give Scott Brown a free pass into his statewide race of choice? That little issue could be a part of your legacy as well Senator Kerry. I mean forget all those columnistas who are kissing your ass now....They just want the maximum doubt and political spectacle to fill up their word count thass all. My own feeling is let us deny Scott Brown his preferred opportunity, force him to make a choice among sketchy options sez Humble Elias.

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Steve Wynn

(who is Donald Trump sans the preposterous ego and dumbass politics), may want to build a casino in Everett Ma. This on the heels of one of Wynn's proposed casinos getting re-jected by the Town of Foxborough Ma. This is the sort of news that will likely get Mayor Menino OUT of that hospital room at Spaulding Rehab and back on the job soonest...he was counting on his legacy consisting of a giant hotel-casino complex to be built on the ruins of Suffolk Downs. And so it goes, locality versus developer versus bureaucracy versus ambitious politician. And out only hope of keeping casinos out, lies in just this sort of chaos...tis a thin reed to be sure, but it's all we've got. Frankly (and I conceded I'm riding a hobbyhorse here) I'd sooner see three more distilleries or oil refineries in the Commonwealth than any casinos....

Monday, November 26, 2012

New Hampshire has just finished renovating

the Governor's Executive Mansion (formally the residence of the Late Senator Styles Bridges who deeded it over to the Granite State)....Just in time for Governor Lynch to leave office. New Hampshire has an EXECUTIVE MANSION??? Talk about EXTRAVAGANCE!!! Dear Ghod what would their yeoman yankee ancestors think of such tomfool frippery??? Land Sakes! I just wanna take this opportunity to point out that the Commonwealth of Masschusetts, the alleged poster child for public profligacy, grants it's Governor's no such baronial residence even if they have to commute in to Boston all the way from North Adams as did Jane "Jingle Money" Swift back in the day. We still got some puritan gumption down hyar, unlike those decadent free spending voluptuaries up in the Granite State....lettin' th' public money burn a hole in their pockets like biblical spendthrifts... What would "Bert and I" say???

Sunday, November 25, 2012

Tim Murray wants his shot

at the Governor's office in 2014, and predictably, Joanie Vennochi thinks that ambition "delusional", citing a lack of transparency with respect to Lt. Governor's driving record. Ah yes transparency, that thing that the Globe frets about endlessly when the democrats are in office, you never see or hear the word when the GOP rules the roost for some reason. Nonetheless with the McLaughlin thing, and the Burgess thing a case can be made against the Lt Governor if it wasn't for the fact that the Admin generally fires people who abide beneath the accusation of malfeasance, unlike the Romney admin who just purged out the gays with a tight little smirk. Ah but no matter, the local punditariat has made up it's mind about Murray and no amount of blogging from me at least is gonna change anyone's mind. Tim Murray could take his case over the heads of the media to the people directly Harry Truman style he is at the very least strongly associated with a successful administration in the State House...And that counts for something. Alas and alack, I just don't see Tim Murray generating those kinds of sparks...He is a decent relatively sincere fellow but I doubt he can make the necessary fight to carry the day. Nonetheless his position gives him a serious leg up on the competition within the democratic party...Soooo I dunno,not seeing him as the candidate who can beat Scott Brown or Charlie Baker, but I'd love to be proven wrong here.

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Hizzoner....

Da Mayor of Boston, Thomas Menino, is running the city from a hospital bed owing to variety of complaints. He has been hospitalized since October, with no discharge date promulgated as yet. *** So let me go srtaight there and suggest the Mayor's health is about to become a major political issue in the City of Boston in the lead up to the 2013 Mayoral Election. I don't think anyone wants to articulate it yet, but it is definitely the 800 lb anthropoid in the room. If Menino declines to run, that sets off a free-for-all scramble for office...if he does run the questions about his health will be right out there for all to see and hear. It is an interesting prospect for a blogger at a serious remove from Boston politics...but then I gotta work with what I got... My own thinking is, I cannot imagine Menino "going out on his stool" so to speak even if it necessitated campaigning from an ambulance stretcher. But then again, there is a point beyond which mere willpower cannot work it's dark magic. Y'know, its funny after a generation of treating state democrats as pesky supplicants, it may well be that Tom Menino's last great political accomplishment lay in the elevation of a liberal Harvard Law Professor to the US Senate....

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Some 3600 or so

of our fellow citizens of the Commonwealth, have sent petitions to the White House, demanding that Massachusetts secede from the Federal Union. This of course is the tantrum du jour from the radical right in the wake of Obama's re-election this monht. Soooo there is a tiny minority of rightists, libertarians, enraged republicans, kooks, weirdos and wingnuts in Massachusetts who would somehow prefer the notational separatist reign of DEVAL Patrick over the Presidency of Barack Hussein Obama??? Talk about excising your nose to shame your face Oh but it gets worse, because clearly the rightists of Texas would prefer the likes of a grim teachable like Rick Perry as their notional national leader over Barack Hussein Obama. Shee-it if Texas was somehow able to secede with Perry in charge they'd all be the thralls of Mexico within eighteen months count on it....

Monday, November 19, 2012

Mouse Musings....

Over at "Channel Zero".... It is a little disheartening to note the sheer concentration of classic fictional characters from Superman to Nancy Drew that are essentially owned lock stock and barrel by corporations. Nobody makes money by producing anything desirable anymore, we just build th' old profile and cash in by selling out. And that is the inexorable logic imposed on us by an private sector that produces nothing in abundance save MBAs and attorneys.

Y'know...I just luv it when...

Governor Patrick tries to give Howie Carr a heart attack via policy pronouncement.  Case in point the Governor's decision to extend state tuition to the kinder of illegal immigrants...if that didn't induce a fugue in Howie's man-cave in rustic Wellesley what the hell will??

But then this is what I like about Deval Patrick, occasionally he makes a decision on the pure morality in play. A Mitt Romney would want focus group data before even considering the issue...and a call-around to his fundraising base. I know I'll miss Patrick's leadership sorely when he teleports himself to Glory....

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Schadenfreude Part III

As much fun as the Boston Herald is, on the day after the democrats clear the board, nothing quite matches reading the newsweeklies and their attempts to wrap their narrow little groupthink minds around the recent presidential election.

Time  Magazine: Has this whole "Whoa Up there democrats!  You didn't quite score a landslide this time! Don't Get So Cocky or We Will Run a Caricature of You On Our Cover!" meme goin' on.
Otherwise the whole issue is given over to nostalgia for Romney's winning performance in the Denver debate....
 It is pretty funny to read when you consider that the whole Time-Life empire was founded by a god fearing GOP publicist named Henry Luce who honestly believe every republican excess was naught but boyish high jinks and every democratic over-reach A Grave Threat To The U.S. Constitution. As the Olde Misanthrope once opined "Time was always a haughty little rag"...and historically immune to it's own hypocrisy as well.
Shit as far as Humble Elias is concerned Time Magazine invented "Fair and Balanced" news coverage.

Newsweek: Is a fun read this week as well, they can't decide if the GOP is dead outright or mostly dead.
But then again this is "Newsweek" we are talking about they change sides at a speed to do justice to a Mitt Romney. Two months ago they screamed it was a lock for Obama, when the Denver debates went south they started hedging their bets and when Obama finally surged to victory they went running out into the streets banging the pots and shrieking they wuz wif da Prez all da time!

Print journalism is dying and will not likely survive the decade in any substantive way, I will mourn much of it's passing as a former freelance writer for various local publications.  But at least when Time and Newsweek finally go for the terminal dirt nap some good will come of the much ballyhoo'd "Apocalypse for the floppies".

I can remember with the simplest  nostalgia, back in the 1980's when both publications would literally flop over on their backs like bitch dogs at the mere mention of Ronald Reagan's name.   Newsweek in particular was a eight year long weekly commercial for the Reagan Admin right down to George Will's weekly toadying on the back page.  Heady stuff indeed, but now both pubs are headed for the last round up...I for one am getting my dancing shoes shined so I can execute a clumsy nasty little jig atop their cold journalistic graves.

Friday, November 16, 2012

I don't know exactly how

firing rockets into the vicinity of fabled "Dome of the Rock"(allegedly Islam's Third Holiest Site), is supposed to do the cause of Palestinian Militancy any damn good.


Just sayin' thass all....

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Oh and Mitt Romney thinks "gifts"

from Barack Obama to certain constituency groups won the election for the democrats. These constituency groups being women, hispanics, blacks Asians and anyone else with Common Sense I guess.
Cause' lets face it, what can a cold aloof quasi Randian stiff like Mitt Romney doo-oo against a policy "gift" like Hope??
***
Still in his own maladroit way, the former Governor has admitted if unintentionally that the GOP has a serious demographic problem out in the precincts...
I guess he is leaving it to Paul Ryan to follow up and Jim Crow the voting booths come 2016.

If you wanna read something hilarious in today's Globe

check out Joan Vennochi's column she is LOUD in her praises for Senator John Kerry for once, but then again she wants him to make the jump to Foggy Bottom as well.
Of course with John Kerry safely tucked way in the Cabinet, Joan will then have a ringside seat on the ensuing special election in the Commonwealth thus to sell newspapers and generate column topics galore.
Well sheee-it I need blog fodder too, but I won't sacrifice John Kerry to get it.
John me heartie, Forget all this empty praise from certain columnists who were calling you a hapless loser not sixty days ago...turn down the offer no matter how tempting the Pentagon, Foggy Bottom or the Collectorship of the Port of Galveston Texas may be.
Please Senator, Stand by Massachusetts!
Don't do Scott Brown any favors, let him try to porch climb his way back on the established schedule ....

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Petraeus...

Somewhere in Merle Miller's biography of Harry Truman ("Plain Speaking"), the Former President opines briefly on the three things (or is it five?) that inevitably bring down a statesman.
One of those things was "running around with women"...a topic that Truman was both emphatic and brief.
And so it goes with General Petraeus, power, the perception of power, the demonic fringe benefits of power and ...sycophants all united in a heady brew that undid a decorated Officer and a CIA Director and a presidential prospect.
It is an old story, and never ceases to enthrall.
I feel bad for his wife, she married into the mishaugas with eyes open and still got publicly humiliated...oh well this is why we have divorce courts.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Secesh....

A White House website is apparently being bombarded with petitions demanding secession & disunion in the wake of last week's GOP debacle.
So much for grace in defeat eh?
Well lemme tellya, secesh is a dead end, Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis didn't send Abe Lincoln any petitions when they decided to hazard all on disunion.
Moreover revolutions are not ignited by sending angry emails...
No this is a symptom of serious post electoral defeatism among the opposition it is all very emotional and a little childish quite frankly.  It is akin to all those hysterical announcements that the captioned speaker would "leave the country" if Bush won in 2004...
Sad silly stuff quite frankly.
I blame the apocalyptic tone of campaign advertising it leaves a nasty psychic hangover after the election is over and done with.  Ah but thanks to Citizen's United we can look forward to more electoral hangover's like this for decades to come.

John Don't Go!!!

The Washington Post claims that The President wants to make Senator Kerry Secretary of Defense.

This is just a bad idea all around, the job isn't a good fit for Kerry personally, it makes Elizabeth Warren the Senior Senator from Massachusetts after less than a year on the job, puts Scott Brown back into play and forces the Commonwealth thru another Special Election not three years after the last one.

Senator Kerry I speak as an old obscure supporter yours, DO NOT DO IT!
Please...We need you here.
The people that are for this, are those that will most profit from political chaos in the Commonwealth, don't make that your legacy Senator, turn down the offer if the offer comes your way!

Monday, November 12, 2012

The State GOP

appears to be in a self pitying transport of despair following last week's thorough drubbing at the polls here in the Commonwealth.
They lost seats in the lege, couldn't elect Tisei or re-elect Brown, pretty much they got served across the board.
As a democrat and a blogger, I can watch that process with some grim amusement...and yet I'd give the Massachusetts GOP even odds today to capture the governorship come 2014.

Stop and think, the democrats have to gin up a candidate they aren't gonna have Deval Patrick with his charisma and record of achievement to headline the ticket.
Moreover the list of democratic gubernatorial aspirants (admittedly notional at this point) runs the gamut from the experienced and well known to the unknown-with-potential.
I would rate none of the democratic aspirants currently bruited about as particularly inspired or charismatic.
Moroever if the default regression to the mean in Massachusetts tends towards big democratic majorities it also resets pretty effortlessly to republican governors to keep an eye on the democrats.
The opposition still has some names out there who can fundraise and have run statewide both successfully and unsuccessfully...that is more than enough to get started as far as Humble Elias can see.
A lot depends on whether or not John Kerry makes the jump to Foggy Bottom, that could upend things very nicely for everyone over the short term.
Which I why I wanna go on record and beg the Senior Senator to resist any offer to become Secretary of State, for about a dozen good reasons we need him here in Massachusetts!

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Stop and think for a moment...

Just exactly who wants to join the GOP these days?

I mean of the rising electoral cohorts in the USA?

Blacks, Women, Hispanics, Asians...all of them deserted Mitt Romney and went marching in the streets for Obama on Tuesday.
The results were so obvious and irrefutable that even a hopeless dub like Jane "Jingle Money" Swift admits the GOP is in a serious demographic trouble.

These days down in DC the republican's power base is down to a collection of rotten borough house districts bought and paid for with corrupt petrodollars to maintain the hopeless and helpless John Boehner as House Speaker and an vengeful gerontocracy of skygrifting Supreme Court Justices, after that....pffft they got nuthin'.

There are likely two courses of action open to our republican brethren.

One is to opening compete with the democrats for the loyalties of the rising electoral cohorts, this would likely require some modification of the GOP's core ideology and legislative program and would likely antagonize for different reasons both the big money contributors and the tea partei base that the GOP co-depends on for survival.

The other option is to "Retreat into Stupidity" (to quote George Orwell), insist nothing is wrong in terms of demographics and double down on restricting access to the ballot for anyone outside the GOP comfort zone.

Given the magnitude of the psychic, ideological and monetary costs of option #1, anyone wanna take action that option# 2 is the GOP's answer to the 2012 debacle when all is said and done?

Anyone??


Friday, November 09, 2012

Karl Rove

allegedly shook down the Overclass for three hundred million dollars in SuperPAC contributions all in a bid to unseat President Obama on Tuesday.
As of 10:18pm EST, 11-9-2012 he has just exactly nothing to show for the effort, every penny of it WASTED!!
HAW HAW!!
I've waited a long time for Karl's Komeuppance, it was well worth the wait believe me!
***
My Ghod three hundred million dollars thrown away, truly we need a new Overclass in this country the one we have right now is too credulous & self destructive by half!
***
Y'know the great political managers have a short life expectancy, the Mark Hannas, the Louis Howes, the James Carvilles have maybe two campaigns in them, and that is it!
Afterwards they can lobby, lecture, write, yak it up on TV...Or they can become fundraisers and plunge off the cliff that beckoned so saucily to Karl Rove this year...

Three hundred million think of it, you could buy a lot of pastry for that kind of long green, shee-it you could corner the domestic market with liquid assets like that.
And given the outcome this Tuesday the money would have been better spent doing just exactly that!

Thursday, November 08, 2012

Schadenfreude part II

Holly Robichaud (Boston Herald Columnist), the very model of restrain and decorum in defeat.

The Fall of Mitt Romney....

Y'know, I took no pleasure in watching Willard Mitt Romney's electoral meltdown and subsequent defeat Tuesday night.
He has campaigned nigh incessantly for an unprecedented six years straight for the US Presidency and has just exactly nothing to show for it.
A wearisome exercise that helped morph a twitchy ass-kissing amateur into an uninteresting hack when the big hammer finally fell at 11:18PM EST, 11-6-2012.
In the end, Willard stopped simply being entertaining, his gaffes dried up at long last and he managed on nothing more than smarm, mendacity and sheer lust for power to make this a competitive race in the final weeks.
For a while there this summer, Mitt had all the makings of another Sarah Palin he literally said nothing sensible for four months straight, but late in the game he found his opportunity and ran with it right off a cliff.
I suppose there is something admirable in Romney's desire to go down with all flags flying or at least he wanted to make it look like all that money he collected from the overclass was going into a real fight to the finish.

In truth, this whole election heralds the Twilight of the MBAs.

Ah yes that strange business school mentality that asserts that the skills necessary to run a tuna cannery, high tech company or a great republic into the ground, are entirely transferable based on one's MBA from an A-List school.
This notion has been the absolute downfall of the US Private Sector during this current recession and it got a rude awakening on Tuesday.
You just can't treat the US Presidency as a natural corporate promotion...Romney tried it free and clear in a National Election and it did not work.
And when you partner all this up with Romney's almighty intellectual disconnect from the great issues of the day and his rhetorical limitations you get a recipe for disaster.
You could tell even as the race tightened that Mitt knew something was wrong, why else did he suddenly defect to the classic Massachusetts GOP Gubernatorial playbook in the final weeks?
Run to the center, play to the independents, deflect the oppositions ground game via commercials and try to rise above it all.

Put it another way Romney tried to address accusations that he changed his mind a lot by...changing his mind.
In the end none of it was enough, the coalition he sought to create was too narrow, too backwards, too bent on punishing others with a tendency to...vote, and for a man who trumpeted his independence, Romney was pretty clearly the complete captive of the GOP's tea partei base even if there might have been mutual contempt going back and forth on both sides.
But its over now, Romney's twelve years at the top of US Politics has come to a tedious and slightly tawdry close.
This blog started with him as Governor in 2003 at the start of his desperate run for ever high office, Humble Elias has been at a remove from Romney nigh these twenty two years but always an interested observer of his many many political personas.
He had none of Nixon's dark charm or Reagan's loopiness or the Bush Family's crime family patina...Nope in the end Romney was just a hapless too ambitious MBA who wanted to outdo his Dad in the worst possible way, and so he did.

Wednesday, November 07, 2012

Schadenfreude (Part I)

Howie Carr is just a delight, insolent, insufferable and arrogant when the GOP wins, he turns into a craven sniveling whiny beeyotch when they lose.
So of course, today's column is a delicious primal scream of infantile despair over Scott Brown's defeat....which included this gem:
"Despite his upbeat concession, Brown hated losing to the fake indian".
Wow read minds much Howie?
Anyway it can't be any more painful than having a fake soldier as our uniform loving Junior Senator for two long years....
***
Meanwhile over in today's Globe Jeff Jacoby is bitching and moaning about the divisive smear campaign that Obama unleashed on poor unsuspecting Mitt Romney.
Well...Gee Jeff having your patriotism and very American Birthright incessantly questioned and derided is bound to make a reelection bound US President mighty quick on the draw.
Besides where was all this bleeding heart concern over nasty campaign tactics when the "Swift Boat Liars"were burning up the news cycle in 2004?
Oh and those cute little band aids embossed with the Purple Heart that got passed around at the GOP convention...a  very crude dig at John Kerry's war injuries and all passed over by Jeff Jacoby with a prim sacerdotal silence.
Ah but this is Jeff we are talking about, he wants to blast his opponents, righteously, all he ever seems to do is set fire to himself....

Scott Brown, Premature Elation...

Well, Former State Senator Scott Brown's two year long victory lap ended abruptly last night as democrat Elizabeth Warren (hereafter known as the Little Professor from Oklahoma) wound up & decked his bony ass.
Scott will have hopefully have made some lucrative contacts and dug up some good lobbying gigs to supplement his muscular National Guard pension, cuz the gravy train grinds to a halt in two short months.
Scottie we hardly knew ye....
Ghod Howie Carr must be having a fugue right now....
***
Well what can I say, Brown "went negative" over the whole indian ancestry issue and kept it up even as the whole argument got embarrassing and lame.
Worse all the good will he built up with independent women last summer got vaporized by the end of September, the man looked and sounded like the worst sort of entitled bully.
His base though must have loved it, certainly the hapless lout who screamed at my Warren for Senate" sign,  "Liar Liar Pants on Fire" was heavily invested in that narrative.
And there is a lesson there, one thing Brown was good at was getting borderline Falangists to vote, contribute and work for him even as he posed as a sort of Indian-loathing Northeastern Moderate Republican.  But yez gotta dance with them what brung yuh and so their issues in some way became his issues and off a cliff he drove in  campaign SUV.
It didn't help much that he amassed no record of note his two year Senatorial Career nor did it do him much good to virtually put himself up for public auction every time some issue of transcendent significance came before the US Senate.
Still, his political career is hardly over, his wife is still comely, with Tisei's defeat down on the South Shore last night he becomes the highest ranking GOP officeholder with worthwhile name recognition & a definite constituency as well. And he has good fundraising ability as well...will it be Governor or Senator?  That depends on these rumors of John Kerry's move to Foggy Bottom (something I devoutly hope does NOT happen)...but then again a serious Charlie Baker v. Scott Brown gubernatorial primary could be a fun damage fest to be sure.
Like Dr. Fu Manchu, likely we will hear from Scott Again.
Meanwhile congrats to the Little Professor from Oklahoma, she done blew a hole thru the glass ceiling in state politics, what Healey, Coakley, Swift & O'Brien could not do, Warren pulled off with aplomb.
This is a good thing for both democrats and republicans an important needless and sexist barrier has at last been breeched.

Barack Obama doubles down on the USA...

The test of a great political organization and the coalition it seeks to assemble, is not made in flush times when landslide victories are on offer, it is rather coming thru come hell or high water in a tight race.
And that is what the President did last night, he forged a coalition, built a machine to them all to the polls and ran Mitt Romney right off the board.

Its a classic case, much akin to the democratic victories in 1948, 1960 & even 1976.

So kudos to the President, he never ever flinched, hell his "those not skinning may hold a leg" philosophy even developed good stout coat-tails down ticket, that coalition of his likely elected four democratic senators last night...Including our new Junior Senator from Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren.

But it was Obama's night, he proclaimed, he attacked, he had boundless faith in his organization & coalition, he never backed down on his own record and what the hell, he won.
Object lesson for the democrats of 2016....

Monday, November 05, 2012

A Final Thought:


Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'
Winston Churchill - June 18, 1940

To which Humble Elias adds that the men who got us into this fix, who profited from the subsequent tumult, who were themselves bailed out of their follies at public expense, must not be rewarded for their    ineptitude and greed with the highest office in the land.

And so for the Glory of the Commonwealth, for the deliverance of the very Republic itself, get out there and Vote For Obama!

Oh and Bill Weld caught the Amtrak Redeye from NYC

and endorsed Scott Brown down in Quincy Market yesterday.
No doubt afterwards he snuck off to the "Bell in Hand" sat at the end of the bar moodily drank Chivas Regal, played "Under My Thumb" over and over on the Jukebox and stared off into space muttering to himself.

KIDDING
KIDDING
KIDDING!

I KID BECAUSE I LOVE
I LOVE...TO KID!

:D

Oops almost forgot....

To endorse Barack Obama for reelection as President of these United States.
He has in truth ravenous opponents, but the one thing that will not stand is the accusation that he lacks leadership.
Indeed as Churchill observed of Lincoln's critics "They did not know leadership when they saw it".
And so it is with Obama, he has soldiered thru his first term with remarkable aplomb and purpose a calmer abler man simply cannot be found.
Mitt Romney by contrast is not man made for challenging times, his foreign policy is naught but to make threats and hope no one calls him on it, his domestic policy is designed to insulate and protect the overclass, all other can go hang.
Nope it's Obama first last and always.
***
Oh and while I am at it, I heartily endorse democrat Elizabeth Warren for the US Senate, she will work 24-7 in the interests of the plain people of the Commonwealth and that is good enough for me. Scott Brown?  After he is done checking his polls, reviewing his pension options he MIGHT do right by Massachusetts, but it'll be largely by accident to be sure.
No Warren is our best bet to restore some leadership to the Junior Senator's slot from Massachusetts.
And while we are at it, lets elect democrat Dave Rogers to the 24th Middlesex House District tomorrow, he has some wit, an interesting resume and a willingness to work hard. His opponents self proclaimed chief qualifications seem to be "Belmont Residence"....Rogers at least is prepared to look at the district's needs as a whole...and as usual that is good enough for Humble Elias.
And in the end this is all I can do, that and resolve myself tomorrow morning into the ranks of the immortal Spartans of Menotomy and make my Last Stand for Commonwealth & Republic.
So...for all of us lets win this one so that a hundred years from now, the democrats of 2112 can say "this was their finest hour"!



Sunday, November 04, 2012

There is nothing more grimly hilarious than to watch

Scott Brown's current round of campaign commercials and realizing that after months of playing cowboys and indians he is suddenly and at the last minute retreating to the center and even moving leftward.
"Vote the Man Not the Party" is a good slogan however and might move some voters into his column come Tuesday, of course it is awfully late in the game to morph into a Rockefeller Republican if'n yew ask me.
On the other hand, blustering about your independent bona fides in the final forty eight before election day is a tried and true GOP tactic in Massachusetts, versions of it finished in the money for Weld, Cellucci & Romney so take heed is all I can say.

Oh and Scott is still flashing pics of his own self in full National Guard Colonel Drag...Class All the Way Scott, Class All the Way.

Final argument...

True to his churlish streak unto the last, Mitt Romney is now claiming that re-electing Obama will compel congressional republicans to renew their policy of obstruction & gridlock and bring chaos down on Washington DC.
"President Romney" will of course somehow smooth over those troubled waters...

Sounds like blackmail huh? Elect me or the GOP House caucus will wreck the country, it's a argument straight out of Allen Drury...
But like all of Romney's more feverish notions it is built on the dubious premise that Mitt somehow has a mysterious pimp hand over the barbarian wing of the GOP.
Quite the opposite in fact, it is they that have the whip hand over Romney, he has done nothing but suck up to them for two whole years, made any number of patently insane promises (expl. Abolish/Defund FEMA), Romney has been dealing with Massachusetts democrats all his life he has no concept of the vengeful extremism within and without the congressional GOP.
My thought is, Mitt will collapse like a house of cards at the first puff of wind from the right, that lot have been pushing Romney around for years, and there is no indication they would stop if he became President.
Frankly if you want some measure of bipartisanship Obama is a much better bet....because the best bipartisan politicians are the one who can say "No" and mean it.
Romney can't say "No" not to his own, and they know it.

Saturday, November 03, 2012

Congressman Ed Markey

is holding an emergency meeting tomorrow at 11am at Arlington Town Hall  in respect  of climate change and the impact thereof on the Northeast.
Kevin Knobloch, of the Union of Concerned Scientists will be there, so this is hardly gonna be a campaign rally.
I give Congressman Markey high marks for at least trying to initiate a discussion about climate change even in the aftermath of an avowed superstorm and in the final three days of a Presidential campaign, the man's heart is in the right place.
But I'd feel a whole lot better about the long term prospects of the climate change debate if similar meetings were being held in Miami Florida, Charleston SC and Norfolk VA.

At the very least we have to start thinking about counter measures in the North East Corridor, and that of course, means money.

Wanna meet Howard Dean?

He will be making an appearance today down at the Arlington-Lexington combined democratic headquarters 46 Massachusetts Avenue Lexington from about 12:45 pm to 1:45 pm.

He will be no doubt gently haranguing the Spartans for one last final & supreme bid for victory...

Friday, November 02, 2012

Christie in 2016...

Amid tragedy and disaster sometimes the best political course is simultaneously the honorable thing to do, ergo hunkering down and doing your job as best you can.
Barack Obama knows this which is why he can rise to the occasion during a natural disaster by keeping calm, engaging with the public and buckling down to the matter at hand.
Bumptious NJ Governor Chris Christie seems to have learned the same lesson in the wake of Hurricane Sandy attack no one, praise hard work and the job at hand.
Much as it seems mercenary, in this hurricane is opportunity to intro onself to the nation as a bipartisan rebuilder of broken townships.
Thus...Christie becomes a prospect for the GOP nomination in 2016 (assuming of course, the GOP still has the stomach for a Governor from the Northeast)....
Of course Romney must lose on Tuesday for Christie to prosper in the next go round' if Mitt wins likely Christie will miss his chance at the Big Brass Ring.
Fate will decide that part of the scenario, over the long term we should be watchful and see if he starts hitting the gym and dieting Mike Huckabee style...it'll be a sure tip off that Christie has ambitions beyond Trenton.
Fat is like a bald head in modern presidential politics, a drawback in other words. The last well fed Presidential candidate in this century was Adlai Stevenson (the former Illinois Governor liked his meals to be sure) and the last President with a paunch was Herbert Hoover...I mean you do the math on that one.

Thursday, November 01, 2012

If we aren't going to have any discussion about the

physical consequences of climate change in this presidential campaign (and we are not believe me, Mitt Romney alone is a statesman who unconvinced of global warming and the efficacy of FEMA), then we must have a discussion about how best to prepare the East Coast of the USA for the results of "extreme weather".
By this I mean protocols for the sharing of resources between states post-weather event, appropriations for evacuation housing, improvements in evacuation routes, strengthening upgrades to the electrical grid and long term studies as to the contours of the Atlantic coastline in fifty and one hundred years.
OR we could just have that climate change conversation now before events force hasty decisions of us later.
***
Not for nothing but the Romney Campaign mus t be writhing with impatience and tsuris, Hurricane Sandy has pushed their sh*t out to the ten minute mark on the evening news, a veritable exile in the final week before a national election.
Anyway, skip over to Yahoo.com they've got a well displayed button thereon to make Red Cross contributions, money is the great solvent of trouble, money buys food shelter and warmth in a trice....remember that going forward.