So I’m baffled as to why this line from last night is considered to be Gomez’s most effective:

“We still don’t have immigration reform done. And you’ve had 37 years to do that. We still don’t have a comprehensive tax reform done. And you’ve had 37 years to do that. We could have reformed Social Security and Medicare. And you’ve had 37 years to do that”. ….

Bob Oakes: An effective line.

Jeff Berry: I think so.

You gotta be kidding me. This betrays a hell of a lot more about Gomez’s ignorance of the legislative process than Markey’s effectiveness. Markey, of course, is known as one of the most effective legislators in Congress:

Most Effective Lawmakers Also Most Inspirational to Staff

It is a characteristic of the most effective Members of Congress that they attract and retain (and sometimes re-attract) the best and brightest people and use them to enhance their own scope, assets and leverage inside Congress. Markey is unquestionably one of these, with a longtime great staff of impressive loyalty and longevity.

…Markey and Dingell, models in this area, long have been favorites of mine, men who never lose their zeal for shaping the policies that affect the nation, and who are adroit and wily at the politics of Congress whether in the minority or the majority. For Dingell, known to all for his ferocity (it is not always a picnic to testify in front of him), the secret to his command of loyalty is that he also is a pussycat — warm and gracious to people around him. Markey and Dingell are both strong-willed and hate to lose. They also are about as different in personal style as one can imagine for Democrats sitting on the same committee and sharing many of the same political values, though not always the same views on issues.

It insults the intelligence to say that one US Rep, however brilliant and effective, and in whatever time frame, could wave his hand and make all well. It’s dumb on the face of it. And as Joanna Weiss wonders … what is Gomez promising in the next 17 months? Unicorns?

Look, if you have a problem with Ed Markey not being able to get stuff done, then the answer is to elect about 300 more Ed Markeys to Washington. We should be so lucky!

Now that the NSA has come out and magically decided it’s prevented 50 domestic terrorist attacks in the past 7 years, I’ve been inspired to come out and tell the truth, too….

I. Am. Batman.

I mean, there’s a reason why crime is down 33% on the MBTA these days. Me.

Sadly, my work there has not improved service. Alas. But at least you feel safe, right?

It hasn’t been easy work, either, but thankfully I’ve discovered how to make these nifty things called Batarangs at RyansTake Enterprises.

They’ve come in handy in Lynn, where I prowl Union St. at night like Robin does my Batcave in the depths of RyansTake Manor.

And they’ve worked, too. Crime is down 4% last year in Lynn.

Why? Because BATMAN. You’re welcome, sinners.

But don’t worry about the dangers of vigilantism. I am totally trustworthy. Like the NSA’s special relationship with FISA, I can be my own judge and jury.

I’m hip with all the latest theories on recidivism and all that jazz. The Lynn Police chief said you can’t arrest your way out of crime.

Of course not. That’s what the batphone is for! He calls me, I bust people up and make sure the criminals know crime doesn’t pay.

And what about all those crimes I’ve stopped that don’t show up in the statistics?! There’s hundreds of them! No, thousands! Unlike the NSA, I don’t go to bed.

Don’t believe me? Here’s a video I totally just magically discovered of me stopping an attack at the GE’s abandoned Factory of the Future.

Without me, however would we have been able to get a Market Basket in Lynn?

You’re welcome, America.

So, just in case anyone’s worried about the dangers of me violating constitutional rights in Massachusetts, as I set the bad guys straight, just remember how much good I say it does, and believe me when I say it… because I. Am. Batman.

At a time when rolling back federal surveillance programs seems particularly challenging, we can still have a major effect here at the state level. Recently, Attorney-General Martha Coakley proposed a new bill that would actually loosen Massachusetts’ wiretapping laws – by a lot. The bill, called “An Act Updating The Wire Interception Law” (S. 654 / H. 3261), is coming up for a hearing before the Judiciary Committee of the Massachusetts legislature on July 9, along with a stack of other privacy-related legislation that might actually be good.

The wiretapping bill’s major provisions:

1) Remove the requirement that an electronic wiretapping warrant be connected with organized crime, or indeed with serious crimes more generally. Potentially, even minor crimes like marijuana possession could become eligible for wiretapping by state authorities.

2) Double the length of an authorized wiretap, from 15 to 30 days.

3) Legalize mass interception of communications at telecommunications switching stations, rather than through individual wiretaps on individual phone numbers.

The mass interception provisions in this bill are new, and are especially worrying. Both the Fourth Amendment and our own state constitution’s Article XIV forbid ‘general warrants’ that tap entire streams of personal information without specifying ahead of time what’s being searched for and whose records are being searched. So my group Digital Fourth, in coalition with the ACLU of Massachusetts, Demand Progress, Fight for the Future, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, has launched a petition to oppose this bill.

I’d be very grateful to you as a member of the BMG community, if you’d sign it and tell your friends! Don’t be one of those Democrats who opposes this stuff only when the other side does it!

UPDATE (by David): I received the following response to this post from the Attorney General’s office today.  I have reprinted it in its entirety.

The above blog post includes inaccuracies that are highly misleading about the changes our office has proposed to the currently outdated Massachusetts wiretap law. Updating the wiretap law is a critical tool to combatting gang violence, gun violence, human trafficking, and many other violent crimes that undermine public safety in our communities. And equally important to what it does, is what it does not do. One thing it does not do is alter in any way the many safeguards already put in place under the current wiretap statute to protect against abuse.

I will explain some of the benefits of this new law further below, but first want to correct some of the inaccuracies in this blog post:

1)      The proposed update to the wiretap law does not legalize mass interception of telecommunication switching stations.  Each wiretap must be applied for and authorized individually by a Superior Court judge.

 

2)      Marijuana possession is not eligible for a wiretap.  Only serious designated felonies in the statute would be covered.  According to federal law, only crimes with a minimum one year prison sentence are eligible for a wiretap.

 

The current wiretap law has not been updated since 1968, back when criminal activity and technology was vastly different. In 1968, the law was focused on “organized crime.” A 2011 SJC decision that upheld the suppression of statements obtained by a wire interception during a murder investigation stated very clearly that the investigation and prosecution of some of today’s most destructive crimes, including street violence, are hampered by this antiquated statute. The SJC urged an update to the law.

 

The updates we seek are common-sense and concise, including:

 

• Bringing the law up to date with technology: The legislation acknowledges that today communication is largely electronic and wireless. By updating the definition of “wire communication,” the bill makes explicit the law’s application to cellular and text technology without tailoring the definition so narrowly as to foreclose future technological developments.

 

• Removing the organized crime requirement: Currently, criminal activity that is the subject of a wiretap must have a connection to organized crime. The majority of street violence and gun crimes today, though often tied to looser organizations, nevertheless lack the traditional hallmarks of organized crime.

 

• Including additional violent or egregious crimes as designated offenses: Prior to seeking a warrant for a wiretap, law enforcement must establish probable cause that a “designated offense,” as defined in the statute, has been committed. The current list of designated offenses does not include some of the most violent and egregious crimes that law enforcement must investigate and prosecute today—and that the Legislature has correctly passed since the law’s inception— including human trafficking; firearms offenses; and child pornography offenses.

 

The law also maintains extensive safeguards that already exist under current law. First, any wiretap must be requested and signed by either the elected Attorney General or District Attorney and then authorized by a Superior Court judge. The judge can only authorize a wiretap for serious felonies where there is probable cause that a designated offense has been committed, and after all other investigative techniques have been exhausted or will not be successful. There are additional safeguards that ensure that only the conversations with direct correlation to the alleged crime are recorded and then permissible in any legal action.

 

For all of these reasons, these updates are supported by district attorneys, police, mayors, and many other community leaders who know that the only way that we will be able to better keep our communities safe is to give our investigators effective tools, with proper safeguards, to take the most dangerous criminals off the streets.

 

You can find more information about the proposed bill here:

http://www.mass.gov/ago/news-and-updates/press-releases/2013/2013-01-28-wiretap-legislation.html

 

Sincerely,

Brad Puffer

Director of Communications

Office of Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley

Well, well, well, it turns out that Howie Carr, the gatekeeper of morality who daily impugns the motives of everyone from the poor to the politicians, is a business partner with serial killer John Martorano.

Martorano testified (Globe subscription maybe required) yesterday that he and Carr split a $110,000 advance for the book Carr wrote regarding Martorano’s murderous acts. In addition Martorano has so far received $20,000 in royalties on the sale of the book. So every time Howie promotes the book on WRKO or in his Herald column (which he did today), it helps line the pockets of this monster. I intended to buy the book at some time, but now that I know some of my money will be going to this creep (I mean Martorano in this case), I won’t be buying it.

Of course it is no surprise that Carr is a two-face hypocrite, but entering into a business arrangement to enrich a cold-blooded killer! And shame on Entercom and the Boston Herald for allowing their companies to be promotional platforms for one of the devil’s henchmen.

Voters scored a huge victory today. We applaud the Supreme Court for confirming Congress’s power to protect the right to vote in federal elections. Congress recognized that voter registration must be made more accessible when it passed the National Voter Registration Act, and the Court also affirmed that today.

All true, and all well and good.  Similarly, Ari Berman at The Nation wrote that “[t]he ruling is a major victory for voting rights and an affirmation of the NVRA, which has helped 141 million Americans register to vote and turned twenty last month.”  And over at Slate, Emily Bazelon smugly declares that “[a]t his next Federalist Society event, Scalia will have some explaining to do.”

Or not.  Here’s what worries me: in addition to telling Arizona that it could not require proof of citizenship in the way it tried to do (and, indeed, the question whether Arizona’s law is preempted is very easy – of course it was), Scalia’s opinion also lays out a roadmap for an alternative way for Arizona – or any other state – to do exactly the same thing.  Scalia explained that “Arizona is correct that the [Constitution's] Elections Clause empowers Congress to regulate how federal elections are held, but not who may vote in them…. Prescribing voting qualifications, therefore, ‘forms no part of the power to be conferred upon the national government” by the Elections Clause, which is “expressly restricted to the regulation of the times, the places, and the manner of elections.’ The Federalist No. 60, at 371 (A. Hamilton).”

And here’s where it gets really interesting.  Emphasis mine.

Since the power to establish voting requirements is of little value without the power to enforce those requirements, Arizona is correct that it would raise serious constitutional doubts if a federal statute precluded a State from obtaining the information necessary to enforce its voter qualifications…. Since … a State may request that the EAC [Election Assistance Commission, a federal agency] alter the Federal Form to include information the State deems necessary to determine eligibility, see §1973gg–7(a)(2); Tr. of Oral Arg. 55 (United States), and may challenge the EAC’s rejection of that request in a suit under the Administrative Procedure Act, see 5 U. S. C. §701–706, no constitutional doubt is raised by giving the “accept and use” provision of the NVRA its fairest reading. That alternative means of enforcing its constitutional power to determine voting qualifications remains open to Arizona here.

Having said that Arizona can ask the EAC to alter the form to require that registrants submit proof of citizenship and can sue the EAC if the agency refuses, Scalia noted that the EAC currently lacks a quorum (because Republicans have refused to approve any members, though Scalia didn’t mention that), and observed that it might be problematic to request agency action if the agency can’t legally act.  He then suggested a possible solution to that problem:

Arizona might then be in a position to assert a constitutional right to demand concrete evidence of citizenship apart from the Federal Form.

In other words, Arizona simply chose the wrong method to accomplish its goal of requiring documentary proof of citizenship.  And Scalia has helpfully pointed the way.

Also worrisome is footnote 8 in Scalia’s opinion.  This is real Supreme Court law geek stuff, but basically, Scalia attempts to deprive a 1970 case, Oregon v. Mitchell, which held that Congress could require states to allow 18-year-olds to vote in federal elections (previously most states limited the franchise to people over 21), of any precedential value.  He does this by going through some elaborate vote-counting analysis.  I won’t bore you with the details, but for those who are interested, give footnote 8 a read and see what you think.

So, yes, a short-term victory for voting rights.  But IMHO it does not augur especially well for future cases.  There is more along this general line of thought from Rick Hasen here, and from Marty Lederman here.

Just stumbled upon this at Daily Kos. State Senator Karen Spilka, who’s in the race to succeed Ed Markey in Congress should he win next Tuesday, has introduced legislation to protect citizens’ data:

Long before Massachusetts was a high-tech leader, we led the nation in developing laws to safeguard our liberty. Today, we must lead again — to make sure privacy protections keep pace with technology and renew our freedoms in the digital age.

Just recently, the American people have been given a wake-up call that our privacy is not as secure as we think it is.

* * *

Most Americans are shocked to learn that, because of significant gaps in the law, law enforcement can quietly look at all of our phone records, our old emails, and the documents we store online — without ever getting a search warrant or even notifying the person whose records have been inspected.

This is chilling. That’s why, in the Massachusetts Senate, I have filed legislation known as the Electronic Privacy Act to protect our privacy and guarantee that our system of checks and balances applies to our digital lives.

As Senator Spilka explains:

The Electronic Privacy Act would make our statutes say what most of us assumed they said already — that our phone and Internet records are private, unless police have probable cause to believe we’re involved in criminal activity or the information is needed to protect lives in an emergency. This simple standard has worked for search warrants for hundreds of years. Now we must update it to apply in an era when many of our “papers and effects,” which the constitution aims to protect, are kept at our service providers’ homes instead of our own.

Of course, even if if the proposal makes it through our legislature and is signed into law, there are limits to how much a state law can protect against intrusion by federal “national security” officials. But it’s a step in the right direction.

I think Don Berwick is the first to officially jump into the 2014 MA-Gov race.  And I’m glad he’s in: he’s very smart, and he knows a lot about health care.  Plus, he was unconfirmable as head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (he served in that capacity under a presidential recess appointment) because the GOP would have filibustered him – that, surely, is a badge of honor in Massachusetts that will set him up nicely as a guy who stands for everything that Washington Republicans hate.  Full announcement is on the flip (email, no link).

To the rest of the potential candidates: come on in, the water’s fine!

Today, former administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Dr. Don Berwick released the following statement regarding his candidacy for Governor of Massachusetts:

“A few months ago I announced that I was exploring a run for Governor of Massachusetts. I feel proud of and grateful to this state, and I want to find the best way to give back. Over these past few months I have visited with and heard from folks in towns around the Commonwealth – from the Berkshires to Boston and from Cape Cod to Cape Ann.

We talked about the amazing progress our state has made in education, in building a healthcare system that can be a model for the nation, and in reaching out to its most vulnerable citizens. We talked about the spirit and values of Massachusetts – how in spite of an economic downturn, and in the face of adversity and challenges, our people and our leaders have been able to persevere and continue the progress of our forebears.

But we also talked about how we can do better. We can do more to ensure that the opportunities Massachusetts has given to me and to so many others are open to every single child in the Commonwealth.

We lead the nation – with hard work and a continued commitment to making our state better and taking care of the most vulnerable among us, we can ensure that tradition of leadership continues.

As a doctor, an educator, an innovator and someone who has dedicated his professional career to making things work better and to helping people – I am ready to lead.

That is why I am announcing today that I am a candidate for Governor of Massachusetts.

Our state faces many great challenges, and I want to work with you to address them together.

There will be a time for an announcement tour and traditional campaigning later – but for now, I am encouraging all of my supporters to take another step toward ensuring Massachusetts continues to lead the nation – by doing everything they can to elect my friend Ed Markey to the United States Senate.

We need to ensure that reliable, strong leaders like Ed Markey represent Massachusetts in Washington and that they stand up for progressive values and common sense leadership.

I look forward to working hand in hand with Senator Markey in the coming months and as your next Governor.”

This morning, the Senate President, the Senate Chairs of the Joint Committee on Children, Families and Persons with Disabilities and the Senate Ways and Means Committee announced in a press conference at the State House a “welfare reform” bill that will add more humiliation to being poor, restrict exemptions to the work requirement while spending millions of taxpayer dollars on photo IDs for EBT cards that serves no legitimate public purpose.  At the same time, the bill takes only limited steps to help poor families learn skills or build assets that will lead to an improved standard of living, the only fair and proven way to lift people out of poverty and reduce taxpayer expenditure.

Progressive advocacy groups from across the state will undoubtedly be speaking out against several of the bill’s most onerous provisions as well as against the process by which the bill was brought to the Senate.

This appears to be just the latest in a series of assaults on the poor here in Massachusetts.

Laughably called An Act to Foster Economic Independence, the bill requires welfare recipients to:

• Prove they are actively seeking a job before getting any cash assistance
• Secure a Photo ID EBT card that must be checked by store owner
• Not be out of state more than 30 days (currently 60) before losing benefits

In addition, it:

• Limits work exemptions to those individuals meeting SSI standards (very onerous)
• Limits work exemption for pregnant women to one month before birth (currently up to 4 months)
• Reduces benefit extension from 6 months to 3 months
• Raises age of work requirement from 60 to 66

My question – what problem are we solving??

We know that the right typically hypes the amount of fraud – or the number of people who are sitting on their asses enjoying the largess of the government.  Whoa – want to have a cushy life – live on welfare and food stamps!!

But why do we have democrats doing this?

In the last few state-wide elections, the most progressive candidate won.   What does that tell us about where our policy and our priorities need to be?

More to come in another post on the hideous process used to move this bill so rapidly.

Of course it’s not just a NYC problem. 39% of all Americans, 123 million of us, live in coastal communities. 50% of our nation’s shoreline — 11,200 miles of it — are highly vulnerable to sea level rise. NOAA warns that extra water is a threat in storms, flooding previously safe areas.

via Clean energy now or chaos | CapeCodToday.Com.

On the same page is Menino’s adaptation plan for Boston, due next year.

I’m baffled as to how climate has not been an issue in the Senate campaign. We’re the Bay State. There’s going to be a lot more Bay and a lot less State over the next 100 years. Might be of some concern to someone.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised, because campaign “coverage” generally means that our professional media cover what the campaigns say about themselves and each other. Our media generally doesn’t use its power to fully cover an issue of grave concern and push it into a campaign.

I can think of a few reasons why climate hasn’t gotten more oxygen, none of which are adequate:

• Rep. Markey has such an advantage on this issue that it’s just not even a fair fight. So? Should there not be competition of ideas?
• Gomez has come out as a “Green Republican”, so, you know, it’s off the table somehow. See above. If Gomez wants the Green mantle, let him fight for it, not simply assert it.
• The campaigns themselves have not decided to make it central, instead making guns, choice, and … um … whatever Gomez talks about. Well, who cares what the campaigns say? Is our electoral discourse to be left up to message-hacks and professional propagandists? Are we accountable to them, or the other way around?

(Oh, but I slay myself. Norman Rockwell and Frank Capra are long dead, the cute nostalgic Hummel figurines of democracy. Mr. Potter won and won big; we live in his world.)

Again, the media can drive a public interest agenda when they want.
Spying and privacy have gotten plenty of attention and forced themselves into the political discussion party because media types are very close to it. I don’t necessarily think there’s anything wrong with that in this particular case — just demonstrating that they can do it when they want.

A savage servility slides by on grease.

After looking at recent polling data, fundraising data and some fundamentals — including the higher unpredictability of a special election, Nate Silver concludes that Gomez’s chances for an upset are “slim.”

Although some news accounts had been describing the race as a tossup until recently, Mr. Gomez’s odds of prevailing are remote — probably no more than 10 percent even under optimistic assumptions for his campaign.

And that 10% is largely because this is a special election; in a regular election, the odds would be around 5%, he said. Just another example of why GOTV is so important in this one, even moreso than a general election.

Fundamentals alone “would now project Mr. Markey to win the contest by roughly 12 percentage points,” Silver writes. That same model “would have seen the 2010 race as a tossup by this point in the campaign on the basis of Mr. Brown’s superior fund-raising totals and the national political environment.”

You can read Silver’s full post here.

Cam Kerry and John Markey kick off Broookline canvass June 13, 2013

I joined Ed Markey’s brother (and my former law partner) today to kick off Markey for Senate canvasses in Brookline and Concord.  With 10 days until the June 25 election, I wanted to do my part to make sure the Democratic grassroots effort is in full gear.

This race matters to me a great deal — because my brother held seat until he joined the Obama Administration, because I know and have worked with Ed Markey, because it will have a real impact on the debates in Washington.

Ed Markey has fought many of the same battles as John Kerry.  He will pick right up where John left off.

In 2010, the two of them led the fight for energy and climate change legislation.  As I work in Washington for consumer privacy Ed is the first person I turn to because he has fought so consistently and forcefully for consumers.   He is also a key champion of the innovation economy. Ed will be able to hit the ground running in the Senate with the same energy and creativity.

The choice in this race is clear.  On a woman’s right to choose, on gun safety, on keeping an eye on Wall Street, there is a real difference.  We cannot to afford to lose one vote in the Senate.   One vote can make a difference on Supreme Court nominations and the confirmation of key appointees.  On the next round of budget battles.  With 39 straight months of job growth now, we cannot afford to go backwards or balance the budget of the middle class or the most vulnerable.

The people of Massachusetts elected John Kerry to the Senate five times because these issues matter to them.  I’m working to elect Ed Markey because he will carry on what the voters elected my brother to do.

Multiple choice … private equity … jobs overseas … good packaging but vague positions … the guy could be Mitt Romney’s fifth son!

There is one key vote he can’t duck.  That’s the vote he would cast to make Mitch McConnell the Majority Leader of the Senate, and along with him, to put Republicans in charge of Senate committees (like climate-change-denier James Imhofe on the committee that deals with the environment).

I have seen what BMGers can do to mobilize the grass roots grass roots going back to 2006. 10 day to go — time to do it again, for Ed Markey.

The poll shows very few undecided voters – only 4%.  It also shows Gomez leading among unenrolled voters by only 9% – far short of what he needs to have any kind of a shot at winning.

It seems clear that there is going to be no late-breaking surprise surge in this race the way there was in 2010.  If Gomez pulls out a win, it will be because he and his supporters dramatically outwork Team Markey between now and June 25.

So, your job is to be sure that doesn’t happen.

I am suspending virtually all of my field campaign activities from June 20-25, and offering my field team (by far the largest in the Boston mayoral race) staff and office locations to the GOTV effort for Congressman Markey. Over 1000 of our volunteers, as well as our staff, will be pressed into service in the critical final days of his campaign. In addition to the human capital, I have offered the Markey campaign use of our field offices in Beacon Hill, Dorchester, Jamaica Plain, South Boston, Mattapan, Hyde Park and East Boston.

This is important. I want our canvassers, phone bankers, data people and other staff out there working day and night on the GOTV effort to send Ed Markey to the United States Senate. He is a national leader on climate change, health care, equity and every other issue important to Democrats, and will serve us well in the Senate. I was proud to be the leader in the Dorchester effort in recent elections. I was the first Boston elected official to join the Elizabeth Warren campaign. Every member of our team in Boston was instrumental in sending her to the Senate and returning Barack Obama to the Oval Office. It is important that we continue to support both of them, and our shared agenda, by sending Ed Markey to the Senate to work alongside them. As he has in many races over the last 20 years, Mayor Menino has similarly directed his people to join the Markey effort, and we are happy to join them. I urge all other candidates to do the same. We’re all Democrats.

-Marty Walsh

Ed Markey is out-fundraising Gabriel Gomez by a substantial margin. Why does this matter? Besides the obvious (the Markey campaign can spend more), Gomez’s fundraising ability is a key indicator of whether he’s got a chance to pull off another GOP special election upset, according to a Nate Silver post last month:

 …if there is one thing to watch in the next couple of weeks, it will be how much financial support he receives from rank-and-file Republicans. In 2010, Mr. Brown’s fund-raising was spectacular after he became the Republican nominee. He had raised about $15 million in individual contributions by the special election date, roughly double Ms. Coakley’s $7.3 million. That was a sign that something special was going on.

Well, it looks like nothing special is going on in this race. Between April 11 and June 5, the Markey campaign took in $3.1 million while Gabriel Gomez’s campaign raised $2.1 million (including, it appear, $300K Gomez loaned his campaign), CQ Roll Call posted today.

While there was no new independent poll news today, Republican outfit Harper Polling conducted a poll on behalf of Conservative Intel which finds Markey up by 12 points, 49-37. This poll claims that Markey and Gomez are tied among independents while each get roughly the same percent of their own party’s voters: Markey with 80% of Democrats and Gomez with 81% of Republicans. And of course there’s no way a Republican can win in Massachusetts without a substantial lead among independents.

Overall, this poll says that Gomez trails among women voters by a whopping 26 points while he’s tied among male voters.

I don’t actually take any partisan polls seriously, but the fact that a GOP pollster is showing Gomez down by double digits is moderately interesting since another recent Republican poll claimed the race was within margin of error. I also find it intriguing that this poll shows Markey crushing among voters 66 and older: 54-36. I continue to believe that Gomez ridiculing Markey’s years of experience is not going over well with older voters.

The election is a week and a half away. I have yet to see any credible independent data that shows this race even within margin of error, let alone any signs of what happened in 2010. Now it’s all about GOTV and making sure Markey’s supporters get to the polls.

Over the past few days, EB3 has complained several times that there has not been enough discussion of the NSA’s scandalous grab, in the name of counterterrorism, of details about every single phone call made or received by a Verizon customer. I’m sure this policy has been applied to most, if not all, phone carriers and email services as well. Who knows where it ends?

Ernie’s right. We can debate whether the harm done to any specific person by this snooping is as severe as the harm done by past wrongs. But the sheer breadth of this program, the absolute lack of any limiting principle whatsoever, make this situation deeply troubling in its own right, with no need for comparisons.

It is my hope that the recent revelations will prompt a serious discussion in this country, that there will be an outcry sufficient to force a changing of course from the paranoid post-9/11 security state. I applaud Rep. Mike Capuano and those Democrats and Republicans who legitimately are shocked by this news. I applaud Ed Markey, whose candidacy for the Senate I support strongly, not only with my vote but with my time and money, for voting against the Patriot Act’s renewal in 2005, 2010 and 2011, and against reauthorizing the Foreign Intelligence Security Act (FISA) in 2012.

I applaud Ed Markey for saying this:

“As they’re looking for the guilty needle, they gather an innocent haystack of millions of Americans’ information, and we have to make sure that all of that information is protected. We have to make sure there is no compromise of the privacy, of the security of ordinary American families, who are no security risk in our country. That’s why I vote no any of these programs which do not require a warrant.”

I do not applaud Ed Markey for this:

But Markey declined to criticize Obama for the surveillance.

Look, I want to root for Barack Obama. I just went to see him in Roxbury. I voted for him twice. I worked my tail off for him and donated a number of times in 2008. I did not do so in 2012 because I preferred to focus on Elizabeth Warren’s campaign, and because I’ve been deeply disappointed in his presidency. Never more so than with the revelations of this widespread surveillance. I didn’t travel to four different swing states in 2008 to elect the East German Stasi or the KGB. I didn’t work so he could continue this policy – started under George W. Bush – without anyone telling us about it.

In my view the anti-federalist, states’-rights crowd has done a lot more harm than good in our history. The one thing they got right, really right, was the Bill of Rights. It is not appropriate for a President, of any party, to put the Bill of Rights on hiatus because there’s some danger out there in the world. I understand that any President, of any party, has an awesome responsibility these days trying to protect this country’s people from terrorists. But, as somervilletom has pointed out, in April we saw right here in Boston that there’s no way to keep us safe every minute of every day. Two total amateurs, total clowns, the terrorist equivalent of the Keystone Kops or Roscoe P. Coltrane’s Hazzard County Sheriff’s Department, managed to create mayhem and kill and maim our fellow Bostonians.

Particularly distressing is that, if there is political fallout from this mess, it will only benefit those who would make things worse. In the past few days, as I’ve visited the gym, I’ve been treated to the surreal spectacle of Fox News, whose hypocrisy knows no bounds, acting like staunch defenders of civil liberties and Senator Dianne Feinstein acting like we don’t have the right to know this program exists.

C’mon Democrats. The Republicans, and Fox News, should have no credibility on this issue at all. They spent most of a decade branding anyone who DIDN’T support the Patriot Act and the FISA law that made this possible as a terrorist sympathizer or worse. It takes a pretty big screw-up to make those guys look like the defenders of individual liberty against a security state run amok.

But guess what: we live in a two-party, winner-take-all system. Our politics are binary as a result. When people get pissed off at Democrats, a lot of them vote for Republicans next time. Democrats pursuing bad right-wing policies only gives Republicans cover.

Nor is this limited to the NSA situation by any means. In the past week I’ve seen Gabriel Gomez tell the debate audience on Tuesday that Keystone XL is OK because Obama’s State Department, now run by John Kerry, signed off on it as safe. The same Gabriel Gomez told the Newton TAB that he’s got “bipartisan” bona fides because he’d love to work with President Obama to cut Social Security. Then there was the GOP Congressman who told his constitutents all about Rep. Joe Crowley (D-NY) taking freshman Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee to have lunch with Jamie Dimon and Lloyd Blankfein.

The GOP should own all of this. And it would, if Democrats didn’t work so hard to claim bad policies as their own. All together now:

• We are FOR the Bill of Rights, not against it;
• We are FOR the environment, not filthy Canadian oil running across our country in a leaky pipeline to a designated export zone in Texas where it will be sold to the highest (foreign) bidder;
• We are FOR Social Security, not for cutting it at a time when alternative retirement savings are very limited for most seniors and we’ve just asked workers, over the last 30 years, to pay more in payroll taxes than was needed for benefits so we could use the surplus to paper over tax cuts for the wealthiest;
• We are FOR regulation of Wall Street, not for letting the Wall Street lobbyists write the bill that guts the already weak Dodd-Frank act (this bill passed the House overwhelmingly with 73 Democratic votes in favor- who says bipartisanship is dead in DC?)

This is why it’s so important for Democrats to stand up for what are supposed to be Democratic principles. And that’s why it’s up to us to support those Democrats who will do so.

If my schedule allows it, yeah

Now that’s a ringing endorsement if I ever heard one.

That quote is one of the saddest thing I’ve heard, and it was brought to you courtesy of Scott Brown. The Globe asked Brown if he would campaign with Gomez.

That’s got to hurt.

For their part, the Gomez campaign said it is comfortable with Brown’s level of support on the campaign trail.

Scott, please show up somewhere with the guy. I’m starting to feel bad for him.

You may have heard that El Planeta, the largest Spanish-language newspaper in Massachusetts, has endorsed Ed Markey for Senate.  That’s a nice get for Markey.  From the endorsement, as translated by Google (for whose accuracy I cannot vouch):

we believe that on the issues that most affect the Latino community in Massachusetts, Edward Markey has shown greater commitment to the defense of them than that exhibited by the Republican candidate, Gabriel Gomez.

But buried in the Globe report on the endorsement is something that struck me as truly bizarre.

Chief editor Ana Julia Jatar said an editorial committee that also included publisher Javier Marin and associate editor Rafael Ulloa examined the candidates’ platforms and performance in the debates in deciding whom to endorse. Jatar said Markey granted an interview, while Gomez did not.

Now hold on a second there – Gomez didn’t grant an interview to the editorial board of El Planeta?  He wouldn’t even talk to them??

My goodness.  No wonder the GOP has problems reaching non-white voters.  You at least have to pretend that you care.

Rally for Cape Wind outside Suffolk Construction (June 13, 2013 / Better Future Project)

A wealthy Cape Cod estate owner fighting Cape Wind got a big surprise today when clean energy supporters rallied at John Fish’s corporate headquarters. Reports Boston Business Journal’s Thomas Grillo:

A dozen demonstrators showed up at Suffolk Construction headquarters in Boston on Thursday to protest CEO John Fish’s stance against Cape Wind.

Fish, who also serves as chairman of the Massachusetts Competitive Partnership, a non-partisan public policy group comprised of chief executive officers of some of the Bay State’s largest businesses, recently took out a full-page ad in The Boston Globe and other publications opposing Cape Wind, a proposed offshore wind energy project off the coast of Cape Cod. [...]

“Does Fish think the next Hurricane Sandy hitting Boston will make our businesses more competitive?” Altemose said in a statement. “How about sea level rise inundating tens of thousands of Massachusetts homes and businesses? Climate change, and the fossil fuels causing it, are the real threats to Massachusetts businesses. If Fish doesn’t understand that, he’s missing the boat.”

Joshua Jackson, an organizer for Better Future Project, cited economic benefits of the $2.5 billion Cape Wind project, noting that the project will reduce wholesale electric costs, resulting in savings of $7.2 billion over 25 years. He also said Cape Wind will create 514 jobs in Massachusetts and 1,119 jobs in New England.

What’s the real reason these wealthy businessmen are fighting Cape Wind? “John Fish, Chairman of the Massachusetts Competitive Partnership and CEO of Suffolk Construction, owns an $11 million compound in Oyster Harbors, the exclusive gated community in Osterville where Bill Koch also lives,” according to Walter Brooks at CapeCodToday.com. Bill Koch has been quite vocal that the fight against Cape Wind is primarily about protecting his estate’s view at the expense of Massachusetts’ public health, energy security, and climate stability.

Tell the Cape Cod estate owners fighting Cape Wind that we’re not backing down. Sign the petition from the Conservation Law Foundation & MoveOn Civic Action to build Cape Wind now.

Borowitz:

A LETTER TO VERIZON CUSTOMERS

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Today, President Obama issued the following letter to all Verizon customers:

Dear Verizon Customers,

Yesterday it came to light that the National Security Agency has been collecting millions of phone records from you each and every day. Since that news was released, many of you have called the White House with questions and concerns about this new program. To save my time and yours, here are answers to three of the F.A.Q.s (Frequently Asked Questions) we’ve been hearing from you:

1. Will I be charged extra for this service?

I’m happy to say that the answer is no. While the harvesting and surveillance of your domestic phone calls were not a part of your original Verizon service contract, the National Security Agency is providing this service entirely free of charge.

2. If I add a phone to my account, will those calls also be monitored?

Once again, the answer is good news. If you want to add a child or any other family member to your Verizon account, their phone calls—whom they called, when, and the duration of the call—will all be monitored by the United States government, at no additional cost.

3. Can the National Security Agency help me understand my Verizon bill?

Unfortunately, no. …

N.S.A. ENFORCES ZERO-TOLERANCE POLICY ON CONSCIENCE

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—The National Security Agency moved swiftly and forcefully today to remind its employees of its longstanding zero-tolerance policy on conscience, warning that any violation of that policy would result in immediate termination.

“When you sign on to work at the N.S.A. you swear to uphold the standards of amorality and soullessness that this agency was founded upon,” said N.S.A. director General Keith B. Alexander. “Any evidence of ethics, decency, or a sense of right and wrong will not be tolerated. These things have no place in the intelligence community.” …

He said that going forward, the N.S.A. would try to recruit people who had already demonstrated “a commitment to invading people’s privacy” by working at Google or Facebook.

USEFUL PHRASES FOR THE SURVEILLANCE STATE

NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)—In the event that the U.S. government is monitoring your conversations, here are some useful phrases to insert into your phone calls, texts, or e-mails:

I think the N.S.A. is awesome.

I just reread “Nineteen Eighty-Four”—it actually has a lot of good ideas in it!

There’s no such thing as a “bad” drone. …

If you ask me, Guantánamo is full of nothing but complainers.

Just changed my Facebook status from “Single” to “In a Relationship with America.”

I’m pretty sure my neighbor is cheating on his taxes.

Onion:

GOP: ‘We Support Our Nation’s 11 Million Latino Criminals’: ‘These Lawbreakers Are Part Of Our Country’s Rich Tapestry’

WASHINGTON—As the debate over immigration reform continues in Congress, members of the Republican Party on Tuesday voiced their unequivocal support for the nation’s “more than 11 million Latino criminals,” emphasizing that much of the foundation of American society rests on these hardworking Hispanic lawbreakers.

“Today, as we consider these crucial changes to our country’s immigration laws, let us once again reiterate our party’s tremendous respect and advocation for the legions of dedicated and persevering Latino wrongdoers who are such an important part of this country,” said Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), speaking on behalf of a group of GOP lawmakers who have pledged their support of the estimated 11 million “flagrant and obtrusive offenders of the law.” “And so I would like these utterly felonious men and women to know that the Republican Party respects you and your corrupt, blatantly illegal interests. We stand with you, wanton transgressors.”

“After all, you and your lawbreaking ilk make up a vital part of our nation’s rich tapestry,” McConnell added. …

“These parasitic monsters should be given a shot at freedom and opportunity, because diversity and acceptance are what America is all about,” Boehner continued. “And they are what the Republican Party is all about, too.”

Obama Administration Releases Nation’s Phone Records To Public: ‘We Are Making Every Effort To Be Transparent,’ Says President

WASHINGTON—On the heels of reports that the National Security Agency has secretly been amassing the private telephone records of Verizon’s more than 120 million customers, President Barack Obama announced Thursday that his administration is releasing the entire country’s phone records to the public in an effort to handle the situation with complete transparency. “Honesty and openness have always been the hallmarks of my presidency, which is why I believe that everybody should have free access to this essential information,” the president said at a press conference, encouraging the public to visit a newly created online database containing the time, duration, and location of every wireless and landline phone call made by all 315 million Americans. “We—all of us—are laying our cards on the table here. Now, everyone in the country will know who’s calling whom, and when, and how often, and for how long. My administration doesn’t have any secrets, and from now on, neither will you.” Obama noted that, for the sake of national security, personal emails, consumer reports, and medical histories will remain the exclusive property of the federal government.

Daniel Kurtzman:

“President Obama said he welcomes a national debate over our surveillance policies. He said that’s a debate we wouldn’t have had five years ago. Five years ago? It’s a debate we wouldn’t have had two weeks ago if they all hadn’t gotten caught.” –Jay Leno

“He went to China to avoid government persecution. That’s like going to Ireland to avoid getting drunk.” –Jimmy Fallon

“Happy birthday to the president’s daughter Sasha, who is 12 years old. For her birthday, her father gave her Justin Bieber’s phone records.” –David Letterman

“The same conservatives who were all for the Patriot Act are now freaked out about this. They’re like, ‘When we said the president could do whatever the f*ck he wanted, we didn’t mean a black guy.’” –Bill Maher

“Trusting the government to monitor your calls without listening – it’s kind of like trusting Chris Christie to pick up the McDonalds and not the fries on the way home.” –Bill Maher

“Michelle Obama was heckled this week. Did you see that? Wow, she’s tough. Obama always stays cool when he gets heckled, but Michelle was like all Game of Thrones on this woman. She said, ‘If I wanted to hear your opinion, my husband will tap your phone.’” –Bill Maher

Today Lisa Barstow, a Republican State Committee Member from Brookline, wrote in a letter printed in the Boston Globe, “The morning-after pill is available to young people at the drugstore. Abortion pills are available from any doctor. Schools give out free condoms like candy, and there is no limit to condom accessibility at every dime store. There are abortion clinics throughout Massachusetts. How much easier can it be to prevent unwanted pregnancy? What more do Democrats want out of this issue?”

This sentiment is alarming and dangerous for the women of Massachusetts. At NARAL Pro-Choice we fend off attacks to women’s access to basic health care every day. Did Ms. Barstow miss that a 20 week abortion ban – which does not include exemptions for cases of rape or to save a woman’s life – passed in Congress YESTERDAY?

Most importantly, we know first-hand that even in a state like Massachusetts women struggle to access the reproductive health care they need. The bottom line is if you are a low-income or young woman in Massachusetts, you still have tremendous barriers to accessing basic health care.

• In Massachusetts we’re fighting bills that limit abortion to 20 weeks, criminalize doctors who provide abortion, require a 24 hour wait period, ban “partial birth” abortions, and allow you to cherry pick that your state tax dollars don’t go to abortion. In every state budget there is an effort to defund family planning and teen pregnancy prevention programs. And on top of that, we have only a slim pro-choice majority in the Massachusetts House of Representatives—only 7 votes—which means we don’t have much of a margin to defeat these bills.
• Many school districts in Massachusetts don’t teach sex-ed, and some school districts teach abstinence only education that promotes medical inaccuracies about contraceptive use and abortion access. Not to mention that very few schools provide free condoms to teens despite research that demonstrates that it’s an effective tool for decreasing unplanned pregnancies and teen STI rates.
• There are actually only nine abortion providers in the state, most of which are in Eastern Massachusetts, and for some women the closest provider is out of state.
• Anti-choice “crisis pregnancy centers” that lie to women about their options and the medical implications of having an abortion outnumber actual clinics in Massachusetts 3:1.
• Emergency contraception is only just now (as in this month) becoming available to young women under the age of 17, and the cost is prohibitively high for many women at $50.
• While a young woman under the age of 18 can consent to her own prenatal care, she cannot consent to terminating her own pregnancy. If she cannot obtain parental consent, she must go before a judge for consent, which delays abortion care and may result in a more invasive procedure.
• Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, fully insured women can now access no-copay birth control. Even so, insurance companies are interpreting the law differently, not allowing women to access many kinds of contraception. And this doesn’t take into account women without access to insurance.
• Not every insurance company or employer provides insurance coverage for abortion care, making the procedure unattainable for low-income women who are forced to pay out of pocket.

Promoting inaccuracies, like in those in this letter to the editor, do a disservice to us all by dismissing and minimizing the real challenges many women face in accessing health care. At NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts, we advocate for all women to have equal access to health care. This is a battle we are actively fighting every day.

To be clear, in this US Senate race, there is only one pro-choice candidate who will stand with women and ensure their rights and access to reproductive health care: Ed Markey. There are no scare tactics, just the real lives of real women in the balance.

So what more do we want, Ms. Barstow? We want politicians to stop making medical decisions for women. We want to live in a society where we trust women to make the choices that are best for them and their families. And we want guaranteed access, without waiting periods or other medically unnecessary barriers, to reproductive health services that are our constitutional right.

Gabriel Gomez called himself a “green Republican” in yesterday’s debate. Here’s a response from Drew Grande, the Sierra Club’s Massachusetts organizer:

We already knew Gabriel Gomez was relying on Mitch McConnell to help him rake in corporate campaign cash, but apparently Gomez needed McConnell’s political playbook, too. The only way Gomez can claim to be a ‘green republican’ while supporting the dirty and dangerous Keystone XL pipeline is if he subscribes to the same disingenuous political tactics that McConnell has used to throw the Senate into disarray for years. If Gomez has a problem with people in his party like McConnell denying science, maybe he should stop denying reality and oppose the Keystone XL pipeline that would put our nation at risk while making our climate crisis worse.

The Sierra Club is proud to support Ed Markey – the one candidate in this race who has consistently stood up for climate action that will create new clean energy jobs in the Commonwealth while securing a safe, healthy future for generations to come.

Given that Gomez is completely incoherent on climate and energy, I’m not at all surprised that he would say he’s green in one breath and wants to deepen our addiction to climate-disrupting dirty fuels in the next.

But the more cynical would compare Gomez to George W. Bush. Gomez, like Bush, has invested heavily in dirty energy. And Gomez, like Bush, claims to understand climate science while not wanting to do a single thing to cut carbon pollution and continuing to let oil & coal lobbyists write America’s energy policies.

Ed Markey is making climate action – cutting carbon pollution to protect current and future generations from the worst impacts of climate change, safeguarding our vulnerable coastlines from superstorms like Sandy, and creating good-paying clean energy jobs – one of his campaign’s top priorities. Want to tell voters who the real green candidate is in this race? Volunteer for Ed this weekend.

So how do you begin to tear down this stupefying edifice? - promoted by Bob_Neer

“Who run bartertown?” The conservative coalition run bartertown, Selfish, greedy, cowardly intellectuals on the top and their mental slaves, the ones with the brawn, on the bottom. The cops, the soldiers, even a goodly proportion of the construction workers. TSA thugs. FBI thugs. CIA thugs. Commanded by white haired whiteskinned grinning old men on yachts, citizens of all nations and taxpayers in none, running the world into the ground for their own ends, fearing no God nor man alive.

Their influence was everywhere.

The latest thing was this: some guy with a conscience ended up working for the NSA, otherwise known as “No Such Agency” otherwise known as the “National Security Agency”. This is some arm of the government that seems to believe that it can do whatever it wants, the United States Constitution be damned. Apparently government officials used to deny that the agency even existed, which means that its creation was probably unconstitutional and illegal. How a person with a conscience ends up working for the NSA in the first place is a question for another day, but somehow he got in there. And what he found was morally repugnant to him.

It seems that the NSA has been spying on random American citizens for years, analyzing “metadata” such as people’s phone calls, their internet searches, their facebook posts, what have you. The government has been spying on millions of citizens, supposedly to catch terrorists, who are the “communists” of the 21^st century, that is, a bogeyman enemy whose primary existence is to excuse the extra-legal activities of the most powerful government in the world. Osama Bin Laden and his moron followers have allowed the United States to turn the future into one of those science-fiction movies, so-called “dystopias” where there’s all this awesome technology, robots running around and talking computers and all that, but also everything sucks because some combination of an evil government and evil corporations seem to run everything. Almost all science-fiction movies, at least all the good ones, are based on this scenario. For instance, Alien gave us “The Company”, a corporation that finances space expeditions and gladly sacrificed the lives of astronauts to preserve a monstrous space-creature that could be studied and perhaps sold to our evil government for biological warfare. Then there was the Tyrell corporation from Blade Runner, a company that invented human-like slaves implanted with actual human memories, who gradually became more and more human despite having been programmed to die at a predetermined “expiration date”. Naturally, the robot slaves eventually rebelled and sought to find a way to preserve their lives, which efforts were opposed by the corporation and its dutiful servants in government. Then there’s the situation in Robocop, where the government pretty much is a corporation, creating and dispatching monstrous robots to keep the populace down in the guise of draconian “law enforcement”, all in the pursuit of profits for an overclass of white guys in suits. There have been hundreds of science-fiction movies with similar premises, so nobody can argue that we haven’t been warned.

So here we have the “future” of 2013. All kinds of cool technology around. Robots! We’ve got ‘em, though for some reason we haven’t yet found any useful domestic applications for them, like the robot maid in the optimistic cartoon “The Jetsons”. The most interesting thing they seem to be able to do is to kill people. See, we’ve got these robots called drones, that fly around- they can go anywhere- and shoot missiles at houses and cars, burning people alive or blowing them to pieces, depending on how direct a hit they get. Some guy sitting behind a computer screen in a bunker, with a joystick in his left hand, and a beer or perhaps his other “joystick” in his right hand, can fly this thing around and kill anybody, anywhere, just by pressing a button. And if he kills a bunch of little kids by accident? Well, too bad, nobody ever finds out who the guy is, and nobody holds him accountable because hey, it was only an accident. Sucks to be a parent in some ill-favored third world country and find out your three-year-old daughter was burned to death by a robot plane from the U.S., but that’s life, right? This is what our futuristic dystopia looks like. But there’s more, actually. We’ve also reinterpreted the Constitution to allow torture and infinite detention without trial for people suspected of links to terrorism. We’ve got this eternal war going, just like in Orwell’s 1984, and this eternal war gives the government the ability to arrest people on mere suspicion of being connected to “the enemy”. If you’re lucky you get sent to an unconstitutional prison in this weird netherzone between the U.S. and Cuba, where they can torture you in certain legally specific ways and hold you forever without trial, even after you’ve been proven innocent of any wrongdoing or connection to terrorism. If you’re unlucky you get “rendered” to another country that will torture you until you tell them what they want to hear, just like in the Spanish Inquisition. Or you get sent to a CIA “black site”- which is actually a euphemism for these completely unconstitutional, illegal, and immoral dungeons- where people from our own U.S. government get the privilege of torturing you to death in whatever manner they see fit, and your body is never found. You’re just disappeared. Hopefully you were guilty of something, but if you were completely innocent, oh well, because, you know, terrorism!

So back to this guy with a conscience working for the NSA. He finds out what the U.S. is up to, and he decides to fight back in a small way, to serve the common people of the U.S., to stand up against the dystopian government. So he compiles some documents that prove the existence of the government’s illegal spying program and gives them to a reporter. The reporter then tells the world about what the U.S. government has been doing, and of course the government flips out because somebody had the nerve to stand up to it. You get corrupt congressmen like Peter King calling for prosecution, even so-called “Democrats” like Senator Diane Feinstein labeling the guy a traitor for his attempt to serve the American people in our ever-corroding democracy. You see, these fat-cat Congresspeople, who have been feasting at the trough of the corporato-governmental security-industrial-complex for years now, were actually in on the surveillance, and they never saw fit to inform their constituents that the government was spying on them. So the government is going to go after this poor devil like he’s a murderer or something, dedicating all their resources to hunt down a good guy who called them out on their illegal activities. It took them ten years to hunt down an actual terrorist, former U.S. ally Osama Bin Laden. It took them fifteen years to hunt down another former friend, mass murderer Whitey Bulger. I bet they catch this poor devil Snowden in two weeks, because what he did was far worse than murder, far worse than terrorism. He had the gall to tell people the truth.

The Globe is reporting that Gabriel Gomez has a pattern of moving jobs overseas. As noted earlier, while a Director at Keystone Automotive, it seemed that Gomez had a hand in shifting jobs to India. The Globe is confirming the overseas job shift and has now reported additional details:

While Gomez was a director, Keystone consolidated facilities, merged call centers, and “implemented a cost reduction program throughout the company,’’ according to filings with securities regulators. Total employment at Keystone fell from 1,800 to 1,444 over three years.

In one round of cutbacks, 22 accounting workers in Pennsylvania were let go, according to a Labor Department report, because their work was shifted to a foreign country.

The Globe is also reporting that in another company, one here in Peabody, Gomez was part of a team that bought Synventive. Gomez moved jobs to China and Germany.

“It was a good company, except things changed a lot over the years,’’ said David Scatterday, a mechanical engineer who worked at Synventive for 20 years before being laid off, with a year’s severance. “You lost a lot of the good qualities you had with the original owners.” And, he recalled, “A lot of business went to China.”

That the jobs went overseas is acknowledged by federal officials. In March 2009, 18 laid-off Synventive workers, many over age 50, were offered government aid to retrain, specifically because their jobs were being moved overseas, according to the Department of Labor.

When asked about his role in moving jobs overseas Gomez’s response?

when the Globe asked about his record of helping create jobs in China, rather than in the United States, Gomez said, “That’s not true.” Then he slammed his car door and an aide drove him away.

Gomez can’t run away from his record, he’s going to need to discuss his investment career if he’s going to tout his business experience.

Why is it up to the Red Wings fan to create the open thread when the Bruins are in the SC Final?

Anyone else watching?

Today I was fortunate enough to attend today’s rally for Ed Markey with President Obama and a host of prominent local political figures. A more-than-overflow crowd turned out at the Reggie Lewis Center in Roxbury: I was there by 9 AM though the printed tickets said 11 AM, and there were already hundreds, if not thousands, of people on line. We didn’t make it into the building until nearly 12, and nobody took the stage until almost 1, but everyone was in high spirits and it was well worth the wait.

Here’s a summary of the event with (more) pictures.

The festivities kicked off with two extremely cute little girls leading the crowd in the Pledge of Allegiance, and a fantastic rendition of the national anthem. Then new Suffolk County Sheriff Steven Tompkins took the stage, and began his remarks by reciting the preamble to the Constitution. This election, he said, implicates so many of those words. The choice Massachusetts voters make in thirteen days will determine whether we have a Senator who will “promote the general welfare,” the welfare of ALL our citizens. It will determine whether we “establish Justice” by working to eliminate discrimination in all its forms, or “domestic tranquility” by banning the assault weapons that threaten our communities.

Senator Sonia Chang-Diaz (who is due to have a baby in eight days), with a brief foray into Spanish, reminded the audience – and those who will be watching on the news later – that Latinos in Massachusetts want a Senator who shares their values, not their surname. Boston City Councilor Ayanna Pressley electrified the crowd with a rousing speech about the stakes in this election.

Mayor Menino spoke next. The Mayor was wheeled onto the stage and needed forearm crutches to reach the podium, visibly laboring with each step. He spoke from the heart about Ed Markey as a fighter for the type of country he wants to live in, and about government as a force to make people’s lives better. The crowd’s affection for the Mayor was obvious.

Next up was the candidate himself, and Markey was perhaps more fired up than I’ve ever seen him. He was filled with passion and a sense of urgency and promised to work 24 hours a day until the election (Tantrum!!!!) and to criss-cross the state bringing his message to voters. He spoke of his own experience living the American Dream, and squarely credited it to the great middle class revolution unleashed by the New Deal. Before 1932, he said, we had no safety net. As a result, his mother’s dreams were dashed when her own mother died and, as the oldest daughter, she had to leave school to take care of the younger children. In the 21st century, he said, we must move forward to an even better tomorrow for all of our people, not back to a pre-FDR world where a select few live in opulence and everyone else struggles to get by.

But the headliner, the reason for the quarter-mile of lines and the three hour wait in the street outside, was the President of the United States. President Obama joined Ed Markey on the stage and was greeted with boos when he began with a reference to the Chicago Blackhawks, who begin the process of losing the Stanley Cup Finals tonight against our Bruins.

The reception improved when the President exhorted the crowd not only to vote for Markey, but to knock on doors and make calls for him:

I’ve got to have folks in the United States Senate who are willing to stand up for working people. I need folks in the United States Senate who every day are waking up thinking about the people who sent them there, and trying to figure out, “How do I make sure that they are getting a brighter future?.” That’s who Ed Markey is. I need Ed Markey in the United States Senate.

So this election is going to come down to turnout. We’ve got a whole lot of Democrats in this state and a whole lot of Obama voters, but you can’t just turn out during a presidential election. You’ve got to turn out in this election. You can’t think, “Oh, I did my work in 2012.” You’ve got some work to do right now in 2013. You can’t just pat your back and say, “Well, I knocked on some doors back in November.” I need you knocking on some doors right now in June.

And if you work with the same focus and the same passion — if you are knocking on some doors and making some phone calls, if you’re talking to your friends and you’re talking to your neighbors — if you are making sure that people know Ed Markey’s remarkable record in Congress, then I guarantee you he will be the next United States Senator from Massachusetts. He’ll join Elizabeth Warren. He’ll carry on the legacy of Ted Kennedy and John Kerry. He will be my partner, and we will continue the march forward on behalf of not just this generation, but future generations.

I’ve made my pitch before and I’ll make it again: Electing Ed Markey to join Elizabeth Warren in the Senate would create a one-two punch few states could match. Electing Gabriel Gomez would be a disaster. It would put Mitch McConnell that much closer to the job of Senate Majority Leader, it would cancel out Senator Warren’s vote on far too many issues, and – as Scott Brown’s January 2010 election did – it would fuel a national media narrative about Democrats in disarray and surging Republicans.

I don’t want that to happen. I want the progressive one-two punch instead. And that’s why I’ll be going all out between now and June 25. I hope you’ll be able to pitch in too!

David Bernstein says Ed’s speech was “rousing”. I’d repost video if it were available from the campaign … Help a blogger out?

And now Bill Clinton is coming to Worcester on Saturday, says Levenson. This is a full court press. Is it “desperate”? No — I sincerely doubt that they actually take seriously the McLaughlin (ie. Republican) poll that showed the race basically even. The roughly seven point lead that’s been shown in a variety of polls lines up quite nicely with recent election experience: Warren beat Brown by 7+;  and Deval beat Charlie Baker by 6.4%. So this is not remarkable. A reasonable take is that a.) The Dems want to take no chances; b.) Obama and Clinton are popular, welcome, and available, and c.) Markey’s been around long enough to be able to call in some favors. And who knows, maybe they just like the guy.

In conversations with progressive activists and legislators since the revenue debacle (the tax package had dramatically less revenue than we need, and was not progressive), it has become clear to us at Progressive Massachusetts that at least five things need to happen moving forward to bring about substantial progressive change here in Massachusetts.  We must:

• Elect more progressives to the legislature
• Activate more consistent, timely and effective lobbying by a larger number of citizen activists
• Build a more cohesive and disciplined progressive caucus in both the House and the Senate
• Change the rules of the Legislature – resulting in less power concentrated with leadership
• Elect progressive leadership in both Houses (including the next Speaker and Senate President)

Over the next few months I hope to generate meaningful conversation on each of these challenges on this blog but I actually want to start with the last item – the one that possibly seems the least in our control, the most arcane inside the building kind of process issue – because it actually makes the biggest difference with our current structure and contributed most directly to the failure of the revenue issue.

And it’s timely.  Sometime between now and January 2015, we will have a new Senate President.  Some of the candidates being mentioned to replace Therese Murray – Stephen Brewer, Richard Moore, Stan Rosenberg, Tom McGee – have very different voting records both last term and this.  And the most progressive leaders – Sonia Chang-Diaz, Jamie Eldridge, Pat Jehlen – aren’t even being mentioned.

It would be great to get at least one really progressive candidate in play but may be more realistic to work on progressives to vote as a block for the best candidate available – and that candidate is not likely to be Stephen Brewer or Richard Moore.   Alternatively, progressives could stick together and demand very concrete concessions – particularly around rules reform – from the available candidates.  This was the opportunity the House had – and didn’t take – when it came time to replace Sal DiMasi.  You guys know how this works – it’s like what you see on every cop show when there are two suspects.  You put them in separate rooms and offer the “deal” to the one who gives you what you want.

One of the reasons Senator Brewer may have a powerful influence over even some progressive legislators is because he has been and continues to be Ways and Means Chair.  This means Senators could have a concern about future funding for their districts – or owe favors for past funding.  But that’s not what it means to be progressive.  Sure, we love when our Senator gets a park protected or some affordable housing built or our favorite community center funded or some great individual program gets some extra money.  But we need social, economic and environmental justice for every part of the Commonwealth.  We need progressive policy like new revenue that allows all our communities and residents to thrive.

As an example of that, look at the recent Senate budget deliberations.  When the Senate budget debate began, it included $36.8 billion in spending.  Two days later, that was increased by only $47 million – clearly not making much of an impact on the priorities that we care about, and yet some legislators trumpet these increases as if they will have a dramatic impact on their constituents.

What can you do?  Call your Senator.  Have a candid conversation about who they are supporting for Senate President.  Get them to vote for a true progressive candidate.  Get them to vote for someone who will commit, in advance, to major rules reform, new revenue and progressive policies like earned sick time and a raise in the minimum wage.

“U.S. Rep. Michael Capuano (D-Somerville), who voted against the Patriot Act, rallied protesters by calling the law the worst attack on freedom since the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts.”

                                                                                    Boston Herald
September 10, 2003

I am sure you are aware that Verizon has reportedly been ordered by the top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA court) to turn over, “on an ongoing daily basis”, information about every customer telephone number, including landline, cell and business numbers. That information reportedly includes all numbers dialed and all calls received within the United States as well as between the United States and other countries.

As I write this newsletter, the news is filled with reports that a similar program called PRISM is in place for every major internet and email provider. The government claims they have not accessed the content of phone calls, but it seems they ARE accessing the content of emails such as videos, websites visited and more. According to reports, the PRISM program is not at this time being used on U.S. citizens.

Even if you can accept the government collecting the number and length of every call you make, are you really comfortable with them having the ability to catalogue all the YouTube videos you watch, the Netflix movies you download, or the web pages you visit? It seems that our own government has access to every phone call, email and internet search for all Americans at every minute of every day.

Like most Americans, I am absolutely outraged. But, if you’re a long time subscriber to these newsletters, you probably already knew that. You also probably know that I voted against passage of the so-called “Patriot Act” and every reauthorization since it first passed in 2001.

Before I go any further, I feel compelled to remind you that I was an early and strong supporter of President Obama.  I am still amongst the strongest Obama supporters in the House of Representatives.  Nonetheless, I cannot remain silent out of some sort of misplaced loyalty to President or party when I believe that basic American rights have been intentionally trampled.

I know we live in a dangerous world and there is work to do to prevent terrorists from harming us. But we must find a balance between giving law enforcement the tools they need to track and indentify terrorists and protecting the very liberties upon which our great country was founded.

This data collection has reportedly been going on for 7 years. The length of time that this has been going on and the staggering amount of data collected on every Verizon customer amounts to an incredible overreach. Even if you’re not a Verizon customer, there is clearly reason for concern. Who really believes that Verizon is the only telecommunications company required to turn over this data?

I have always believed that we must give law enforcement the tools they need to pursue criminals. However, we can do that and still protect civil liberties.

It is time for those of us who support President Obama to speak up.  I believe he is a good man and has been a good President.  However, I think his Administration has allowed their concern for our safety to lead them down the wrong path.  If we remain silent, those who have always wished him to fail on every point stand a better chance of winning the hearts and minds of America and we will all be worse off for it.  It is possible to support President Obama and yet disagree with him on certain issues – this is one of those times.

As recent revelations have focused attention on the Patriot Act, I wanted to pass along the above post,  which I shared with my E-Update Subscribers and my Facebook page.  If you would like to subscribe you can sign up on my website http://www.house.gov/capuano/e-updates/subscribe.shtml or like my official Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/RepMichaelCapuano.

The latest Suffolk and WBUR/MassINC polls (along with the rest of the polling) do show a very slight tightening in the race between Ed Markey and Gabriel Gomez.

http://massnumbers.blogspot.com/2013/06/latest-markeygomez-polls-show-very.html

But an 8 point disadvantage is nothing the GOP should be happy about, especially given that Markey is holding even with Gomez among men, and has a whopping 17 point advantage with women (averaged across all polls). Gomez is not winning nearly enough independents to make up for the Democratic registration advantage.

http://massnumbers.blogspot.com/p/ed-markeygabriel-gomez-massachusetts.html

“Markey’s lead over Gomez shrinks” claime the Boston Globe. “A new poll from Suffolk University suggests that we could have another close special election for a Senate seat in Massachusetts on our hands,” hypes the Washington Post.

But is the latest Suffolk University poll truly signal? Or is it noise? Is this the start of another 2010-like trend? Or do these media reports show that journalists haven’t learned that polls move up and down during the course of a campaign season and such fluctuations aren’t necessarily statistically significant?

If you haven’t seen it yet, the Suffolk poll released today shows Markey ahead of Gomez by 7 points, 48-41. Yes, that’s a major decline from the prior Suffolk poll — but, I don’t think any of us really believed that previous poll showing Markey up by 17. Bad comparison. How does it stack up with the other independent polls of late? Well, today’s poll remains within margin-of-error range of every other independent poll since the beginning of May.

Nate Silver hasn’t weighed in on this race since May 6, but at that time Silver said that Republicans “can win Congressional elections in blue states if just about everything goes right. . . . However these instances are rare. Mr. Gomez is capable of winning, but his roughly five-point deficit to Mr. Markey in the polls now could also prove to be a high-water mark.” Gomez’s deficit has still exceeded 5 points in every independent poll since.

So right now, I’m calling this latest change in Suffolk polling results noise, not signal. I’d need to see more data with a considerably more significant downward trend before I’m ready to declare signal.

Independent polls on the Markey-Gomez special election since the primaries.

By December 2011, after years of pressure from women’s reproductive rights groups and the companies selling the drug, the F.D.A. was poised to lift all age restrictions. By then the F.D.A. also said it had determined that the drug was safe. But in an unprecedented move Ms. Sebelius overruled the agency. She said at the time that she had based her decision on science because she said the manufacturer had failed to study whether the drug was safe for girls as young as 11, about 10 percent of whom are physically able to bear children.

In April, Judge Korman once again ordered the government to make all morning-after pills available without a prescription and without any sales restrictions. In a stridently worded ruling, Judge Korman wrote that Ms. Sebelius’s decision to overrule the F.D.A. “was politically motivated, scientifically unjustified, and contrary to agency precedent.”

Well, that’s a relief: the administration has decided to follow science and allow greater freedom to its people rather than base our health laws on dogma advanced by a minority of the population that have fought the president at every turn. Will it be equally enlightened about respecting the right of citizens to a fair trial before imposition of capital punishment, and the right to be free from indiscriminate examinations of personal correspondence? The jury is still out on that one.

I recently participated in the Boston meet up for the National Day of Civic Hacking on Saturday, June 1^st. The National Day of Civic Hacking is inspired in part by President Obama’s Executive Order issued in May to establish an Open Data Policy and brought together citizens, software developers and entrepreneurs from all over the nation to collaboratively create, build and invent new solutions using publicly-released data, code and technology to solve the challenges relevant to every neighborhood, city, town and state.

The room was filled with about 40 coders and software developers ready to work together to design computer applications and programs to allow people to access technology in ways to help others. According to the National Day of Civic Hacking website, one team in Washington, D.C. worked with the U.S. Department of Labor to design a system that connects women veterans with important available resources, such as childcare, transportation and support for PTSD. Another DC-based team worked with a representative from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to use a massive open CFPB dataset to create meaningful visualizations that help shed light on the scope of consumer complaints filed with the agency.

A friend of mine who writes code had told me about the big weekend event over a month ago, and it piqued my interest given my work in making the state budget more transparent through  Open Checkbook and making corporate tax breaks more transparent.  I submitted the Help4OK project (#Help4OK hashtag on Twitter) to build on local efforts for crisis management response following the Boston Marathon bombings and disasters like Irene and Sandy. The project is based on a website for Oklahoma tornado victims to connect people who need help with people who can give help. The goal of the Help4OK challenge is to design a website that is 100% mobile friendly and hosted publicly on drupal.org. Check out the Help4OK challenge at http://hackforchange.org/challenge/help4ok-0.

The report I received from project leader Jamie Meredith was encouraging and inspiring. 7 participants from the original group logged in 14 hours working on the Help4OK challenge, hashing out concepts and coding to carry out the goals of the Help4OK challenge. Over two days, team members made great strides to streamline the Help4OK website and simplify crisis response to future disasters.

That Saturday, the group focused on discussion about the logistics and realities of response to a disaster and how that would intersect with a disaster response application. Specifically, they looked at scenarios where government organizations pre-prepare for events by having information ready to feed into a disaster response application. The following day, the shift was made to look specifically at what scenarios would be the most common in a disaster situation and what information would need to be gathered and shared.  Additionally, the user scenarios were outlined for interaction with the distribution and discussed the challenges of establishing a distribution that is easy for a non-technical person to setup and operate.  The weekend ended with a 10 minute presentation given by all the participants in the group with a great amount more work to do to perfect the app.

Selected projects from the National Day of Hacking will be featured at an event sponsored by the White House at the end of July in tandem with President Obama’s focus on STEM education.  For more information on the projects that were launched across the country on the National Day of Civic Hacking, check out http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/06/07/thousands-americans-innovate-good-national-day-civic-hacking.

In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings and Hurricane Sandy, I am eager to see the outcome of the project and how it can be utilized to help victims during future disasters. This event is a great example of how state government can better take advantage of technology and the wealth of hi-tech talent we have in Massachusetts to improve the delivery of services of government to residents.  My experience two Saturdays ago was an exciting introduction to how this could be done.

While Democratic candidate Congressman Ed Markey was marching in the Boston Pride Parade with Senator Elizabeth Warren, Congressman Joe Kennedy, state Representative Linda Dorcena Forry, Barney Frank, NBA veteran Jason Collins and a contingent of supporters…

Photo credit: Markey campaign Facebook page

…Republican candidate Gabriel Gomez stood in front of his lonely campaign booth talking to his wife, son and a few campaign workers.

Photo credit: Gomez campaign Facebook page

Perhaps Mr. Gomez finally got the message that the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community and their allies are not impressed with his refusal to clearly state an opinion on pending LGBT-related legislation and policies?

The special election to fill the U. S. Senate seat vacated by John Kerry will be held on June 25.

Cross-posted at Pam’s House Blend.

Governor Paul Cellucci passed away this afternoon at the age of 65, succumbing to ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.  He served in both chambers of the General Court befor being elected Lt. Governor in 1990.  He was re-elected in 1994 and became Acting Governor in 1997 when Governor Weld resigned to fight for the Ambassadorship to Mexico which he ultimately didn’t get.  Cellucci was elected Governor in his own right in 1998, but himself resigned in 2001 to take the Ambassadorship to our other immediate neighbor resulting in Jane Swift being the only woman to act as our executive for an extended time (though still no woman has actually been Governor).

Great story a friend just informed me of. Free pizza today (Saturday) from 2-4pm at Just Crust Pizza at 49 Brattle Street in Harvard Square. Just Crust was formed from the ashes of Upper Crust, that poorly and unethically run ponzi scheme that also tried to sell (over salty and over priced) pizza. Not only did the former employees of the Upper Crust sue the owners, they also beat one of them for the auction at the Brattle flagship and are opening an employee owned cooperative pizza place with fair wages for all employees, and from the sounds of it, much better tasting pizza to boot. Elizabeth Warren will make an appearance!

Swept the Pens like it was nobody’s business. As my brother posted on his Facebook, ‘Timmy who? Rask will bask in all glory’. Time to rest for the boys in black and gold, we will see if they play the reigning Kings or the champs of old.

So, the Relentless One called. And one does not simply say no to the Relentless One. Kate Donaghue has Deputized me to Dispatch you all on a canvassing tour of greater Somerville — preceded by a civilized brunch.

We’ll meet at 11am at Mt. Vernon Restaurant in Somerville, 14 Broadway, near to the Sullivan Square Orange Line stop. We’ll have turfs cut and hit the streets at noon.

View Larger Map

I gotta be able to get 10 people from this blog to show up, walk around and talk up Ed Markey with folks, right? Especially so close to Boston. It’ll be great. Sign up in the comments or drop me a line, charley at blue mass group dot com. We don’t get together often enough, for all kinds of good reasons. But let’s get together, bring this special election home, and take credit for a glorious victory on the evening of June 25.

It’s been more than 5 weeks since the primary; and not only has Markey been leading in every poll, but his lead has exceeded margin of error in every poll. This should not make us complacent: We all know what happened in 2010. I am convinced this is not going to be a replay of 2010: Ed Markey is running a better campaign than Martha Coakley did, Scott Brown was a better candidate in 2010 than Gabriel Gomez has been so far since the primary, and most importantly I believe Democrats learned a valuable lesson 3 years ago about not taking things for granted. Ultimately it’s all about turnout, since modeling likely voters in a special election is a dicey proposition.

All that said, though, as I look at the data, it’s hard to describe the race as close at this point in time.

Publicly released polls since the primary showing Markey’s reported leads compared with each poll’s margin of error. Green line shows the average Markey lead from all polls.

(UPDATE: David Bernstein is reporting that yet another poll, by UMass Amherst, is about to come out. Markey leads 51-40 in that one, almost identical to the topline in the recent NEC poll. Gomez in the last 3 polls: 40, 39, 40. I see a pattern. Bernstein writes that 25% of 2010 Scott Brown voters report they’re not voting for Gomez; Markey leads 82-16 among respondents who did NOT vote in 2010 but are considered likely voters this time. We’ve gotta turn them out on June 25.)

As reported first by Politico, PPP has released their latest poll in our Senate race. Commissioned by the LCV, it shows Ed Markey leading Gabriel Gomez by 8 points, 47 to 39, with 14 percent undecided.

After a brief look at the crosstabs my initial reaction is that the partisan breakdown (41 Dem, 23 Repub, 36 unenrolled) suggests a Republican-friendly sample. Registered Dems outnumber registered Republicans by more than 3-to-1 in Massachusetts, but less than 2-to-1 in this sample. Gomez is taking 20 percent among Democrats in the survey, less than Scott Brown took but more than he’s been getting in other recent polls. Bad news for Gomez: the poll shows unenrolled voters splitting about evenly (41-40 Gomez with 19 percent undecided). Gomez needs to do a lot better among independents to win.

It also seems a little light on women (51-49 women). Women favor Markey by 16 points, 51-35, which is consistent with what we’ve been seeing in the other polling. The race is about even among men (43-42 Gomez with 14 percent undecided). Gomez is at a net unfavorable (39-40-21) thanks to women. 35 percent of female respondents view him favorably, a full 44 percent unfavorably even before last night’s debate performance. Men are the opposite: 43-35. Markey’s at 50-33-17 among women and 38-46-16 among men. Bad news for Gomez: more men disapprove of Markey than say they’ll vote for Gomez.

Interestingly, Markey is killing it among the young (up 46-23 with 31 percent undecided among respondents 18-29), but for the first time he’s also up among voters 65+, leading 50-41 with 9 percent undecided. Could be an aberration, could be that Gomez’s support for Chained CPI is not helping him.

The polls seem to be settling around a 10 point lead for Markey with between 8 and 15 percent of the electorate still undecided. The undecided pool seems to include a lot of Markey-friendly groups, in particular nonwhite voters (favoring Markey 54-19 with 26 percent undecided) and voters under 30 (favoring Markey 46-23 with 31 percent undecided). Let’s reach out to those voters and get Markey in by a wide margin.

Amid all of the sound and fury bubbling up from the IRS examination of the various conservative organizations there’s hope among the Tea Party faithful that this controversy will somehow breathe new life into their movement. But will it be enough to reinvigorate a movement considered to be in disarray, if not politically stalled? Yes the vast majority of Americans holds the IRS in low esteem and is troubled by the revelations that the agency has, if nothing else, tangled rightwing organizations in excessive red tape, even if it hasn’t moved to cripple them altogether. However, as Sam Tanenhaus of the New York Times pointed out, this isn’t the first time that an administration has used the IRS against the opposition, even though, to date, there’s no evidence that President Obama ordered any such action.

While the wild eyed voices on Capitol Hill have been bellowing for the impeachment of the president, the more level headed among them, and among conservative political pundits, have counseled caution least the Tea Party claque in Congress overplay its hand with negative consequences for 2014. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in a meticulously detailed piece outlines the vast differences between Watergate and the current IRS controversy. It is an analysis that undermines the very argument being made by the far right for the impeachment of President Obama: “Those who bother to read these historical snippets will find many important departures and only tenuous parallels between the Obama Administration’s IRS affair and Richard Nixon’s Watergate-era IRS scandal. A principal distinction is the ingredient of direct presidential involvement. President Nixon was the fulcrum, the visionary and the principal conspirator in his various capers to use the IRS as a political weapon. Nixon personally directed and persistently harangued his staff to audit, investigate and gather dirt on his enemies for personal purposes. Nixon went to reckless extremes even punishing IRS agents who refused to participate in his vendetta. A mean-spirited viciousness and his contagious enthusiasm for law breaking were also distinctive Nixon bailiwicks. In contrast, there is no evidence that Obama even knew of the IRS investigations which were presided over by Donald Shulman, a Bush appointee. The most recent evidence indicate that the Tea Party audits resulted not from intentional political targeting of conservatives from the sheer preponderous of Tea Party applications among the hundreds of 501(c)(4) tax exemption requests that deluged a tiny understaffed IRS field office.”

But while it’s important to note the fact that, to date, the current scandal doesn’t even come close to approximating the severity of Watergate as an assault on the Constitution, there is evidence that Tea Party organizations have pushed the limits of what was politically legitimate. That in turn has increased the attention given these groups by the IRS, which isn’t necessarily unwarranted or beyond the pale of legitimate agency operations. In the article “Groups Targeted by I.R.S. Tested Rules on Politics”, referenced below, two political reporters, Nicholas Confessore and Michael Luo, detail the many activities undertaken by conservative organizations over the past few years that have given rise to legitimate questions on the part of IRS agents who have conducted these examinations. Have those agents been overzealous, perhaps, but at the same time those agents wouldn’t be looking into these groups if they didn’t have a reason to believe that somehow these organizations hadn’t run afoul of the law. The IRS simply doesn’t have the luxury of excess manpower with which to carry out such a political wild goose chase no matter who might have requested such a thing. Likewise the claim by conservative columnist Peggy Noonan, a tireless critic of Barack Obama, that conservatives generally have been singled out for IRS harassment has been debunked prima facie as well by Nate Silver, as referenced below.

With all of the above being understood, what affect, if any, has the IRS scandal had, to date, on the public perception of the Tea Party movement as a whole? Is there any reason thus far to believe that this controversy is breathing new life into the Tea Party? Presently the answer is emphatically no. Jon Cohen and Dan Balz of the Washington Post, analyzing the results of the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll concluded the following: “The IRS scandal has brought the tea party back into the spotlight, but it has done little to change the public’s impressions of the political movement. In the poll, 40 percent of all Americans say they support the tea party movement and 43 percent oppose it, numbers stable back to last year. A record high of 17 percent express no opinion on the question. About 73 percent of conservative Republicans say they support the movement, but that’s the lowest percentage to say so in polls going back more than two years.” Moreover, when you go inside the results of this poll 74 percent of the respondents saw the IRS actions as inappropriate and 56 percent of respondents see this activity as deliberate harassment; 54 percent see the Federal Government as threatening the individual rights of the average citizen.

One would think that for all of the public discomfort being generated by the actions of the IRS that the American people would see anew some value in the Tea Party and its ideas. Ironically that has proven not to be the case. Likewise you would think that these same Americans would now be looking to throw Obama, the far right’s new Nixon, under the bus but that hasn’t happened either. Obama’s poll numbers have actually edged up since this controversy began. In fact if you examine the bulk of the data compiled by PollingReport.com, referenced below, the Tea Party movement has seen, in net terms, its popularity and acceptance decline overall since 2010 and it is, thus far, in no way positively affected by the current spate of scandal and revelation.

One would ask why, with all the unpopularity surrounding the IRS and big government generally and with all of the sensational media coverage and the mainstream media’s new found interest in challenging the Obama administration, why is it that the Tea Party seems to be getting little if any traction from all of this? I think that to for many informed observers the answers are self-evident if not outright obvious. For one thing, even though Americans are wary of “too much government” they have little stomach for deliberate government gridlock and when it comes to gridlock they see the Tea Party movement is the chief culprit in affecting the dysfunctional state of affairs that has come to characterize Washington D.C. generally and Capitol Hill in particular. Gridlock aside, the Tea Party’s penchant for economic austerity works to the movement’s disadvantage as this economic policy has come to be seen as a failure, even among serious conservative thinkers in organizations like the American Enterprise Institute. Finally, the movement is now beset by scandal as well, its onetime Congressional standard bearer Michelle Bachmann has decided not to run for reelection with a scandal of her own as a backdrop.

The essence of American democracy has always been compromise and it has been at those junctures in American history where the practice of compromise broke down that our democracy has been seen to fall short, sometimes with disastrous results, the Civil War being the most obvious example. In the current era it has been the Tea Party movement that has epitomized the belief put forth by Henry Clay, the Great Compromiser of pre-Civil war fame, who famously stated, “If you can’t compromise you can’t govern.” Today the American people know that there is little in the way of real political progress being made in Washington D.C. They see the Republican Party and the Tea Party specifically as the reason why. Furthermore, after three plus years on the American political scene, serious Tea Party missteps at the level of Republican Presidential politics and in Senate races have cast Tea Party politics and politicians in a less than flattering light. All one need do is think back over the clown fest that was the 2012 Republican primaries or some of the absurdities surrounding Tea Party backed candidates for the U.S. Senate during the last two election cycles and it’s not hard to see why, even in the wake of the current scandals and with issues that play right into the anti-government creed, that the Tea Party could still fail to benefit from this current state of affairs.

Scandals have rocked Washington before and they will rock it again. That said there’s another reason that the current round of scandal may fail to reinvigorate the Tea Party movement. The reason for this is that voters have had over three years to get to know the movement and there seems to be little coming out of it that those who don’t already support it find compelling. In fact if you go back inside the data in PollingReport.com you find that the numbers prove that those respondents who claim they don’t know enough about the Tea Party have been halved since data collection began in 2010, sometimes falling to single digits. It could be that even though the average American is disgusted with the state of American politics, those same Americans may see the Tea Party movement as part of the reason for that disgust and therefore the movement isn’t seen as part of the solution. After all one of the chief complaints about Washington today is gridlock, a word synonymous with the Tea Party and that’s not a good thing.

If the aforementioned is in fact the case, and I for one strongly believe it is, then there is little in the way of hope to be had from all of this that will ultimately bode well for the Tea Party. Yes voters can punish the Obama and the Democrats in 2014 at the ballot box, but that doesn’t mean that they’ve finally and firmly embraced the ideas of the Tea Party and the far right. We can see a replay of the 2010 elections which I believe to have been nothing more than a protest against the perceived excess of the first Obama administration rather than a rejection of progressive ideas. For if in fact the 2010 elections had been a rejection of the essence of the first Obama administration there would have never been a second one and as we all know it was Barack Obama and not a champion of the far right who was elected in November of 2012. In other words, as far as the fortunes of the Tea Party movement are concerned, the more things change the more they seem to stay the same. 

Steven J. Gulitti

30 May 2013

Sources:

IRS targeting scandal a political ‘gift from heaven’ for Tea Party groups; http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/299765-irs-scandal-a-political-gift-from-heaven-for-tea-party

Tea Party Looks to Gain Momentum in IRS Scandal Aftermath; http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/19/tea-party-irs_n_3302392.html?ref=topbar

Sam Tanenhaus: The Government’s Worst Face; http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/sunday-review/the-governments-worst-face.html?pagewanted=all

Confusion and Staff Troubles Rife at I.R.S. Office in Ohio; http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/us/politics/at-irs-unprepared-office-seemed-unclear-about-the-rules.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0

IRS Scandal Letters: Other Offices Sent Requests To Target Tea Party Groups, NBC News Reports; http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/28/irs-scandal-letters_n_3349174.html?utm_hp_ref=daily-brief?

Trio of Scandals Puts Obama, Holder in Hot Seat; http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2013/05/republicans-media-bare-down-on-administration-facing-two-scandals.html

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: Obama and Nixon: A Historical Perspective; http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/obama-nixon-watergate_b_3305611.html?utm_hp_ref=daily-brief?

Groups Targeted by I.R.S. Tested Rules on Politics; http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/27/us/politics/nonprofit-applicants-chafing-at-irs-tested-political-limits.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Nate Silver: New Audit Allegations Show Flawed Statistical Thinking; http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/17/new-audit-allegations-show-flawed-statistical-thinking/?ref=politics

PollingReport.com: The Tea Party; http://www.pollingreport.com/politics.htm

Obama’s rating steady in face of controversies, likely buoyed by rising economic hopes; http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-05-21/politics/39402441_1_benghazi-attack-president-obama-irs-action

Obama, politics, IRS and Benghazi; http://www.washingtonpost.com/page/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2013/05/21/National-Politics/Polling/release_237.xml

Obama’s poll numbers hold up despite the storm of scandal; http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/302451-obamas-poll-numbers-hold-up-despite-the-storm-of-scandal

Watch for yourself.

David Bernstein’s take on that exchange seems right to me:

It was a mess, for many reasons—not least that he vowed to never support a change in the law, and declared his support for a change in the law, in a single 60-second answer.

But it was particularly striking to me because it was almost verbatim the exact same thing Mitt Romney said when running for governor in 2002—personally pro-life, politically pro-choice, promise to never change the law in any way. Pro-choice Bay Staters never forgave themselves for falling for it then, so it seems like a really bad idea to invoke the memory, especially while admitting that you don’t mean it.

Can’t say it enough times: our differently-winged friends at Red Mass Group were right when they declared Gomez “simply not ready for primetime.”

(UPDATE: David S. Bernstein has revised the transcript of his exchange with Gomez, expanding on Gomez’s last answer.)

I was busy tonight at a big debate watch party and watching the Bruins’ dramatic double-overtime win, putting them up 3-0 on the Pittsburgh Penguins in the Eastern Conference Finals, so I didn’t take any notes on tonight’s (last night’s?) first debate between Ed Markey and Gabriel Gomez. But I had to pass on David Bernstein’s piece about it.

Bernstein found the debate pretty boring, and thought Gomez was much improved from his primary debate performance. I personally thought the debate was OK and found Gomez quite off-putting and condescending (à la Scott Brown in 2012), starting from his opening line: “After 37 years in D.C., welcome back to Boston.”

Bernstein’s view, which I share, was that Gomez stumbled badly on abortion, saying straight up that he would vote in favor of a Supreme Court Justice who’d overturn Roe v. Wade if that person “would uphold the Constitution, and was ethical.” I can imagine a Markey ad showing Gomez saying he’d vote to confirm such a judge. Let’s not forget that there are four votes to overturn Roe on the current Supreme Court.

Markey was strong here. “You don’t have a litmus test to keep judges who would overturn Roe v. Wade off the Supreme Court. Well, Ted Kennedy had a litmus test. John Kerry had a litmus test. Elizabeth Warren has a litmus test. And I have a litmus test.” Particularly amusing was that Gomez repeatedly protested that he does not, as a U.S. Senator, plan to “change any laws” relating to reproductive rights. Markey finally pointed out the obvious: If Gomez votes in favor of a judge who provides that fifth vote against Roe, that’s a big change in the law in this area.

Bernstein made this interesting point:

But it was particularly striking to me, because it was almost verbatim the exact same thing Mitt Romney said when running for governor in 2002 — personally pro-life; politically pro-choice; promise to never change the law in any way. Pro-choice Bay Staters never forgave themselves for falling for it then, so it seems like a really bad idea to invoke the memory, especially while admitting that you don’t mean it.

Bernstein also gave Gomez poor marks for repeating the bogus claim that Markey has been ineffective as a Congressman:

The other bad moment came when Gomez accused Markey of ineffectiveness, citing the bizarre fiction that Markey has not sponsored a bill that became law in the last 20 years. This is utter nonsense, but has been a regular talking point among Republicans in this race for several months now. Gomez lobbed it at Markey, who took it as an opportunity to start citing some of the legislation he has crafted that is now law. Gomez, as he is wont to do, dismissed this as some sort of “slick lawyerly” twisting of the truth on Markey’s part. Even if Gomez was technically correct — and he wasn’t — the audience got a chance to hear about some of Markey’s legislative accomplishments while Gomez looked like a big doofus.

Gomez reiterated, almost verbatim, his same lame talking points in a post-debate exchange with Bernstein that is well worth clicking through to read in full. Here’s a highlight, after Gomez said Markey’s legislation passing as part of a larger bill is a “lawyerly explanation” (the same line he used in his “pond scum” interview on May 23):

Bernstein: I don’t understand – can you explain why is that a “lawyerly explanation”?Gomez: Because you can sit there and you can co-sponsor a bill, and you can put your name at the end and all that, I’m just saying, he’s been down there for 40 years, he can come up with the double-speak and all that, he can defend himself. I tell you in the private sector somebody does that? They don’t get a raise, they don’t get a promotion. It’s as simple as that. That’s why we should have, if you don’t pass a budget you don’t get paid, down in Congress. You don’t do your job, you shouldn’t get paid.

Bernstein: So, then would you not allow a bill of yours to be folded into other legislation to become law?

Gomez: Of course I would. But the bottom line is that you need, he needs to speak for himself and talk about what he’s done in a leadership position, and what he can stand and sit there and say “this is my bill, right there.”

Of course, thanks to Gomez’s ineptitude Markey spent about 15% of the debate doing just that.

Gomez’s statements are pure gibberish that reflect an astonishing level of ignorance (real or feigned) of the legislative process for someone who hopes to be a U.S. Senator in three weeks. Does Gomez really find “the legislation Markey wrote was folded into a larger bill, which passed and was signed by the President to become law” a difficult concept to grasp? Scary.

More importantly: Does Massachusetts want a U.S. Senator who finds basic legislative procedure unduly complicated, and can’t see how a vote to confirm the fifth vote on the Supreme Court against Roe v. Wade might kinda be a big deal? I don’t think so.

While Markey came off as self-assured, Gomez’s delivery was stiff and at times lacked conviction. When Markey was speaking, Gomez was fidgety and seemed distracted. When debating the merits of American involvement in Syria, Gomez actually said that we needed “to align ourselves with the right terrorist group.” Of course, he meant rebel group. But he didn’t help himself in that exchange.

Perhaps channeling “As you can see, she’s not,” the line that wrote Scott Brown out of the 2012 Senate race, Gabriel Gomez continued with his “pond scum” campaign theme in the first moments of last night’s Senate debate. Boston.com:

The pat words of thanks to the debate’s hosts – WBZ and the Globe – were scarcely out of his mouth before he turned to Markey, saying, “After 37 years in D.C., welcome back to Boston.

“Closed-minded.” “Rigid.” “Old-fashioned.” All phrases that come to mind. But say one thing for Gomez, he is running exactly as College Republicans report is typical for contemporary GOP nominees. “Our research finds … a dismal present situation” the group observed in comprehensive 95-page study released this week.

The Angry Republican is a stock character that can win in some parts of the country, especially states of the former Confederacy, but is not popular in 21st century Massachusetts, except in some of the undrained swamps of local political discourse. As soon as Brown started to channel his inner Tea Party, he lost. Here, Gomez effectively dropped his stick at the face off.

Full Globe coverage by Jim O’Sullivan is here. What did you think of the debate?

For voters who care about women’s health – i.e. the vast majority of Massachusetts voters – it is telling and deeply troubling to see Senator Mitch McConnell step into the U.S. Senate race. Senator McConnell has led his party’s efforts on Capitol Hill to turn back the clock on women. He has voted against equal pay for women and supports private companies who want to deny women health insurance coverage for birth control. Now, he’s counting on Gomez to join his regime and be another vote against women’s health.

Gomez claims he will stand up to his own party when it comes to some issues, but he continues to dodge questions about women’s health and keep voters in the dark. Voters don’t want to play guessing games – we already did that for two years with Scott Brown.

Voters want a leader they can trust to stand up for women. That leader will be Ed Markey.

As a U.S. Representative, Congressman Markey has received a 100 percent rating from the Planned Parenthood Action Fund for his votes against legislation that would have restricted access to safe and legal abortion, and for his votes in support of comprehensive sex education, birth control access, and funding for Planned Parenthood.

Congressman Markey supported the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the single biggest advancement in women’s health in a generation, which Gabriel Gomez would vote to repeal. During the congressional debate on the ACA, Congressman Markey also opposed the Stupak-Pitts amendment that would have effectively banned health coverage of abortion in the new health insurance marketplaces. How Gomez would vote on a measure like the Stupak amendment is yet another question he has refused to answer.

We are proud to stand with the Planned Parenthood Action Fund to support Congressman Ed Markey for U.S. Senate – a vocal and consistent leader for women’s health.

Markey just put out a new ad highlighting Gomez’s positions and his laughable attempt to rebrand himself as a “New Kind of Republican” whatever that means.

By Gomez’s standards, using his own words is mean. Maybe Gomez really is a new kind of Republican, just ask Mitch McConnell.

From: Candidate X

Subject: Breaking: “Toss up”

Date: June 5, 2013 11:48:59 AM EDT

To: blue@bluemassgroup.com

“The highly respected Cook Political Report has just changed its rating on the Massachusetts US Senate race from ‘Lean Democrat’ to ‘Toss Up.’”

– Boston Magazine, 5/30/2013

Dear Friend,

19 days out from Election Day, pundits are now calling our race a “toss up.”

The final FEC deadline of this campaign is midnight tonight. And with our race this tight, we need to make it count.

We need $50,000 by midnight tonight. We cannot miss this mark. Contribute $5 or more right now to help.

Between single digit polls and the disgusting personal attacks coming from the other side, there’s a lot we need to do to fight back. In a toss up race, our ground game makes all the difference.

We need boots on the ground, ads on the air, responses ready to go. We need to keep our staff at full force, our volunteers on the march, and it will all depend on whether or not we can afford it.

Help us blast through this $50,000 goal. Contribute whatever you can, even if it’s just $5, today.

This is the final stretch of the campaign. We have to leave everything we have out on the field.

There’s no time to sit back and watch from the sidelines — every contribution can make the difference.

Help us reach this last $50,000 FEC goal. Contribute right now.

Thank you for your support.

It’s remarkable how generic campaign fundraising has gotten, no?

And today we learn that Marco Rubio has also weighed in on Gomez’s behalf.  Rubio’s message is just as stark as the others, if not even more so.  From his email to supporters (email, no link):

We don’t have to wait until 2014 for a major victory.

In just three weeks, Republicans have a chance to take a huge step toward replacing Harry Reid with a Republican Senate Majority Leader.

The Massachusetts special election is right around the corner, and Gabriel Gomez needs our help…

I started the Reclaim America PAC to help win tough races and Reclaim a Republican majority…. Together we can see to it that Gabriel Gomez is the first victory on our drive to a GOP Senate majority.

So, there you have it, laid out with a clarity that nobody could miss.  If Gomez wins, Republicans are closer to controlling the Senate, and Mitch McConnell is closer to becoming Majority Leader.

Asked about precisely this problem, which of course will drive Massachusetts voters away from him and toward Ed Markey in droves, Gomez hilariously tried to sidestep.

Asked how he would respond to Republican pressure to join in the party’s filibusters, Gomez said he will not kowtow to anyone in Washington. “I’m not going to be in the back pocket of any group or anybody. I will be my own person,” he said.

I have no idea what that means.

Asked who he would support for Senate majority leader, Gomez said, “I’ve got to see who’s available….who is the best person to advance our country forward.”

HAHAHAHA!!  Let me help you, Gabriel.  There will be two people “available” for the job of majority leader: Harry Reid, and Mitch McConnell.  One of them is raising money hand over fist for you; the other wants you to lose.  Which one will you vote for, if you win?