Blue Mass Group

I never thought I’d say it … I mean, it hurts ussss, really, but mixed in with the non-news that Our Guv is testing the muddy waters for a Presidential run, Mitt did something — not enough, but something — right today. He called for universal –therefore compulsory — health insurance: … Everyone has a responsibility to have healthinsurance; for those who cannot afford it, government will help, butonly to the extent needed – not as an entitlement. Not bad, insofar as it goes — EconBlog (Jay Fitzgerald of the Herald) compares it to car insurance — everyone who’s got a car has to have it by law. And you’ve simply got to pool risk (i.e. include everyone, the sick and the healthy, old and young) in order to make insurance work properly. Now, the Misanthropy Institute, er… the Hands-Off-My-Stuff Institute, er, I mean… the Am-I-My-Brother’s-Keeper Institute, um, I mean … the libertarian CATO Institute folks almost had a coronary. Hope they’re covered for that:    "He said what?” remarked an astonishedMichael Cannon, director of healthcare policy at the free-market CatoInstitute in Washington, D.C. "It sounds like he’s running for the(liberal) wing of the Democratic Party.” Unfortunately, Mitt seems to [...]

In news that should surprise exactly no one, Mitt Romney has publicly acknowledged that he’s testing the presidential waters.  He still says he’s "planning on running for Governor" and will make a final decision in the fall.  Translating: "It’ll take me a few months to figure out whether I have any shot at the presidency, and if I don’t, oh, OK, I guess I’ll run for Governor again as sort of a crappy consolation prize."  Nice – exactly what we need running our state. In response, Deval Patrick fired off a statement to Blue Mass. Group (and, we suspect, to others!) noting that Romney’s presidential aspirations were "no surprise," that Romney’s "heart has never been in the job," and that too many of Romney’s 903 days in office had been spent "traveling across the country making fun of Massachusetts to score political points," which "does nothing to help the people" of the Commonwealth.  Seems about right to me.

Good for the Boston Herald.  The opening line of a news story in today’s paper, reporting the vile Westboro Baptist Church’s plans to start protesting at soldiers’ funerals, describes the so-called "Church" as a "radical midwestern hate group." Exactly.  And yet, perhaps because most of the bile being spewed by these disgusting people is directed at homosexuals, we haven’t often seen media reports of this group using those kinds of words.  More often they are called a "religious group," or a "congregation," or just a "church."  But they are a hate group.  Just like the Herald said.  It’s too bad that it took this group’s insane decision to start harassing the grieving families of dead soldiers to bring out the truth about who they really are, but better late than never.  Let’s hope that future media reports about these hatemongers follow the Herald’s lead. UPDATE (6/22): The Herald’s editorial page also gets it.