Blue Mass Group

OK, Deval Patrick doesn’t want to “go negative” on Kerry Healey. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t deserve it, especially with her co-conspiitor and resident liar Howie Carr and his constant bombardment of what Deval Parick “would” do if he was elected.

So let’s come up with some “issues” that a 529 organization could highlight about what a Healey administraion “would do”.

Cross-posted at Mass Revolution Now! After spending half his life in prison on a rape conviction, a man by the name of Scott Frappiano was set free yesterday by a belated DNA test: If not for a chance inventory of DNA samples gathering dust in a Connecticut warehouse, Scott Fappiano might still be lifting weights in prison. But after the samples were discovered by his lawyers last year, Mr. Fappiano finally had the evidence he had sought for half of his life. Yesterday, a State Supreme Court judge vacated his conviction for the 1983 rape of a Brooklyn woman, after the tests showed he had not committed the crime for which he spent more than two decades in prison. Hmm, so where are Healey and the Republicans on this on? Shouldn’t they be castigating those who supported this convicted rapist? Let’s listen in to what Healey has to say about this . . . chirp, chirp, . . . How about the folks over at Hub Politics, who just Thursday attacked Deval for daring to suggest LeGuer deserved a fair trial and a DNA test? chirp, chirp, . . . The truth is that these so-called conservatives don’t truly care [...]

1. Interesting to note that in the Songer Appeal that the Appeals Court vote was 11 to 0 to hear the case. 2. Supreme Court Justices (Thurgood) Marshall and Brennan agreed with the basis of the appeal. I think few cases get to the Supreme Court without some reasonable basis for concern about the quality of the justice meted out. NYT Feb 6, 1985. “Less than a day before he was to die for killing a state trooper in 1973, Carl Ray Songer won an indefinite stay of execution from a Federal appeals court today, and the United States Supreme Court refused a request by attorneys for the state to intervene. The United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, voted 11 to 0 to have the entire court hear Mr. Songer’s case along with that of another Florida death row inmate, James Ernest Hitchcock.” Supreme Court SONGER v. WAINWRIGHT , 469 U.S. 1133 (1985) “Songer was convicted in February 1974 of the first-degree murder of a Florida highway patrolman. The evidence at trial showed that Songer was asleep in the back seat of a car lawfully stopped off the highway when the investigating patrolman reached [469 [...]

After searching the web, I came across the actual decision of the Florida Supreme Court (unanimous by the way) in the Songer case.  The attorney representing Songer listed on the decision is Steven M. Goldstein from the College of Law at Florida State University.  Does that sound like “Deval Patrick”?  (I’m sure Patrick supported the appeal at some point but Healey implies that he represented Songer.  THAT is a LIE). Florida’s death penalty law requires that there be aggravating circumstances to apply the penalty.  In Songer’s case the ONLY aggravating circustance was his Oklahoma conviction and the fact that he walked away from a work detail.  That Oklahoma conviction was later found invalid and vacated so the aggravating circumstance no longer existed.  Consequently, the Florida Supreme Court UNANIMOUSLY vacated the death penalty and imposed a sentence of life with no possibility of parole for twenty-five years. The case is Songer v. Florida No. 72, 043 (May 25, 1989.  Look it up!  It proves that Healey has adopted Rovian tactics!  What a surprise!!

Now that the white hot politicization of the Ben LaGuer case is subsiding it is worth taking some time to look at what it was that got so many highpowerd people involved back in the 1990s. I have studied the case and developed a level of expertise in the case that I am glad to share. Aside from the politics, which I am steering clear of, the two main questions in the case now are: 1) Did LaGuer get a fair trial? And 2) Did he commit the crime? The first question will be determined by the SJC and, depending on what it decides, the second can be determined by a new jury. That is the place where the value of the DNA results will properly be evaluated. By way of a history lesson, here is some reporting Hank Phillipi Ryan did more than 15 years ago. PART I PART II

Isn’t it past time for MA Progressives to again deconstruct big money’s insidious influence in politics here at home and to build this campaign with progressives in other states?.  After all, campaign finance reform is THE ISSUE underlying ALL the issues.  It’s no magic bullet, but its effect on healing our collective democracy could be kinda’ like the discovery and use of penicillin was on healing indivuduals…pretty darn powerful.

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DailyKos post

“Californians, make some noise!” Prop. 89 rap video rocks!  by jennifer poole

Sat Oct 07, 2006 at 09:06:12 AM PDT

The California Nurses Union, sponsor of Prop. 89, the Clean Money ballot initiative, has just released a jammin’ new music video, “About Time for 89″ Webmaster Colette Washington rocks to a soulful hiphop beat, with a powerful smokey voice and lyrics that cut to the chase:

In reply to Ms. Healy’s demands for a one on one debate with Mr. Patrick, I would suggest:

  1. The basis of her argument that Mr. Mihos and Ms. Ross do not represent a sufficient percentage of likely voters and that the general body of voters should have a clear, unobstructed view of the the clearly major candidates (who represent the much larger mainstream)has merit and deserves some consideration;

  2. In that same light, such a one on one  mainstream discourse must also respect our society’s and the voter’s strong interest in a reasoned and rational discouse of the relevant issues;

  3. Highly negative negative ads that portray Mr. Patrick in a false and even a physically disparaging manor ( note some of the ad literature depictiing a fuzzy, grey and contorted picture of Mr. Patrick beside a clear and crisp picture of Ms. Healy)do not at all represent the mainstream and our society’s demand and right to reasoned discourse in our public affairs.  Reasoned discourse is what the mainstream needs and wants in deciding public affairs.;

  4. Ms. Healy’s crude negative attack ads, in fact, represent a minority viewpoint that does not deserve any more public debate airtime that the so called minority views of Ms. Ross and Mr. Milhos – and thus no one on one is deserved or merited for Ms. Healy by virtue of her own reasoning ( such as it is);

  5. However, we are a 2 party type system and Ms. Healy has been nominated by a major party so some respect is due here.  Accordingly, Mr. Patrick should grant her wish for a one on one only if:

Let’s see….

Attack your opponent — who, unlike you, has actually worked in a courtroom — because he believes that the state has an obligation to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt under Article V and that the jury deciding the conviction should be impartial pursuant to Article VI.

Check.

Attack your opponent — when you got a Ph.D. from an Irish university that did not require courses in American Constitutional law — because the opponent believes in the proposition that no criminal, however heinous the crime, should be deprived of his life unless the highest court has accepted that all due process was given in the course of the trial as required under Article V.

Check.

Jon Stewart on the media: You ever see 8-year-olds play soccer? It’s just this weird clump of legs, and then all of a sudden the ball will fly out and with no strategy or game, they just go ‘Ball!’ That’s what the media is. Well, since the primary, the Healey campaign has done quite well at kicking the ball where it’s wanted to, leading to this (ridiculous, to my mind) notion that “the public agrees with Healey on the issues.” Hooey. They agree with her on the issues that Healey has chosen to spotlight … but they don’t particularly care for Romney/Healey’s actual record. So what real, substantive issues would you like to see kicked around between now and November 7th? Oceandreams gave us a good start: Wage stagnation, cost of living, public transit, universities, the Big Dig and Big Dig Culture … what else? What’s going on in the real world, outside of the media circus? I’ll be away from the computer most of today — light up this thread and the user posts, and I’ll front-page some things later today.