Blue Mass Group

Tim Murray releases all totals on campaign web-page of progress on signatures: As of 5/1/2006 DEMOCRATS 10,000 Tim Murray 7,989 Andrea Silbert 8,880 Deborah Goldberg 1,028 Dr. Sam Kelley REPUBLICANS 4,086 Reed Hillman Source: http://www.timmurray.org/mambo/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=62&Itemid=1

To those of you with lingering questions about the status of public broadcaster and “big fat idiot” Rush Limbaugh’s criminal charges of doctor shopping for prescriptions, Timothy Noah has an excellent summary and review of the recent “deferred prosecution agreement” between Limbaugh and the Palm Beach state attorney.

you seemed to skip over a critical issue presented at the forum. “race”. the question posed was “if mass voters are sophisticated enough to discern fiscal issues, are they sophisticated enough to elect a person of color to the executive office.” it was broader than a “black” person, yet the matter drifted toward “black”, and presumably deval patrick. interestingly enough, there were asians in the audience. interestingly enough patrick has 4000 volunteers, won a significant plurality in the caucuses, and in any test to date has emerged ahead of others in the democratic field. sooner or later, the national media will begin coverage of the contest. at which point the question will be revisited…just how sophisticated is massachusetts? perhaps self congratulatory ethos can morph in to acurate coverage.

Bill Fisher reports: “‘Contractors in Afghanistan are making big money for bad work.’

This is the conclusion reached in a new report from CorpWatch written by an Afghan-American journalist who returned to her native country to examine the progress of reconstruction.

“The Bush Administration touts the reconstruction effort in Afghanistan as a success story,” the report says, but claims that reconstruction has been “bungled” by “many of the same politically connected corporations which are doing similar work in Iraq”, receiving “massive open-ended contracts” without competitive bidding or with limited competition.

As I write this, students at Brandeis University in Waltham, MA are gathering to rally against censorship on campus.  They’re protesting the University’s decision to pull a student’s exhibit of drawings by young Palestinians.  The Boston Globe broke the story yesterday:

Palestinian teenagers painted those images at the request of an Israeli Jewish student at Brandeis University, who said she wanted to use the art to bring the Palestinian viewpoint to campus. But university officials removed the paintings four days into a two-week exhibition in the Brandeis library.

Lior Halperin, the student who organized the exhibit, responded,

“This is outrageous.  This an educational institution that is supposed to promote debate and dialogue. Let’s talk about what it is: 12-year-olds from a Palestinian refugee camp. Obviously it’s not going to be about flowers and balloons.”

Brandeis took the action after a number of students who saw the exhibit complained, and Lior declined to modify her exhibit to address their complaints.  “Now, Brandeis is embroiled in a debate about how to portray Palestinian perspectives on a campus where 50 percent of the students are Jewish,” reports the Globe.

I spoke to some people I know on campus, and that’s not quite how they see it.  To them, the issue is censorship.

Thus spake the Globe’s Joan Vennochi at an enjoyable forum I attended this morning at the Parker House Hotel.  The forum, co-sponsored by MassINC and State House News, featured panelists Ginny Buckingham (of the Herald), Craig Sandler (of State House News), and Jim Braude (of NECN), along with Vennochi and moderator Robert Keough (of CommonWealth Magazine).

The four panelists were seated roughly in reverse ideological order: on the far left side of the stage was Buckingham, followed by Sandler, Vennochi, and Braude all the way at the right.  Don’t know if the seating arrangement was intentional, but it was amusing nonetheless.  More below…

From the CBS4boston.com website: (CBS4) BOSTON An exclusive new poll in the Massachusetts governor’s race, shows a statistical tie between the three Democratic candidates. The poll of 421 likely Democratic voters found Tom Reilly just barely out in front with 32%, followed by Chris Gabrieli at 29% and Deval Patrick at 28%. The poll has a margin of error of 4.9%, putting all three candidates very much in the running. This is the first poll in the Democratic race since the candidates held their very first debate, here in our CBS4 studios. Since an identical poll released 24 days ago, Gabrieli has picked up 10 points, Reilly has lost 1 point, and Patrick has lost 8 points – falling from first place into last. Patrick has seen the most dramatic losses among those who earn less than $40,000 a year. He also suffered 8 points of erosion among self-described independents, whereas Gabrieli has picked up 9 points among independents. Gabrieli’s gains are likely tied in large part to his recent buy of tv advertising time. You can check the complete detailed breakdown of the poll by party affiliation, gender, race and income by clicking here. The poll was conducted for [...]

Joan Vennochi’s column today may be about former GOPper heavyweight Jim Rappaport, but it looks like the real news may be about the Dem party leadership: However, the bloggers and then-Democratic state party chairman Philip W. Johnston jumped on the story as a way to challenge Healey’s trustworthiness. Whoa! Is that a hyphen modifying Phil Johnston’s title as state party chairman?? It reads like Phil used to be state party chairman! Or is it a typo? And shouldn’t State, Party and Chairman be up (capitalized) when used as a title before Phil’s name? I haven’t heard that Phil stepped down, but big news like that has come out in stranger ways than an apparent typo.

I didn’t see a mention over here, but yesterday the Globe published a letter from Tom Reilly supporting Ted Kennedy’s sneaky moves to get Alaska’s Ted Stevens to try to block the Nantucket Sound wind farm. I know it’s well known Reilly’s anti-Cape Wind, but it’s surprising to be coming to Ted Kennedy’s side on the one issue the people are increasingly most angry with Kennedy about. I get why he’d want to get Kennedy on his side, but to support Kennedy on a issue he is trying to run away from mostly seems to reinforce the view that Reilly is consistently just plain wrong on the issues and completely out of touch with the public. [Note: I'm a Deval supporter].