Blue Mass Group

“Every year there are more than 4,000 gun shows in every region of the country. These arms bazaars provide a haven for anyone  who wants to take advantage of a loophole in existing federal law and buy and sell guns on a cash-and-carry, no-questions-asked basis. Since the Brady Law went into effect in 1994, the criminal background checks it requires have prevented more than 1,000,000 attempted gun purchases by felons, fugitives, domestic violence abusers, and other prohibited persons. Requiring these background checks on all gun sales at gun shows will ensure that prohibited purchasers who cannot buy guns at gun shops will not be able to turn to gun shows for their supply. What is the problem? Under federal law, anyone who wants to engage in the business of selling firearms must obtain a federal firearms license. The Brady Law requires that when a federal firearms licensee (FFL) wants to sell a firearm, they must contact the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) to ensure that the purchaser is not prohibited from possessing firearms. FFLs must comply with these laws whether they are selling firearms from a gun store or at a gun show. The [...]

Back in 2005, Gov. Romney vetoed funds for flood prevention in Peabody. And in 2006, Peabody Square flooded again. Totally forseeable, totally avoidable, and our Governor made sure that it, in fact, was not avoided. We got on Romney’s case for the needless veto of an obvious and outstanding need. New year, new governor. Gov. Patrick dispenses with the excuses, finger-pointing and other childishness, and starts to take care of business: PEABODY – Gov. Deval Patrick came to City Hall yesterday and threw Peabody a life preserver – a promise of $2 million in state funds aimed at keeping the city above water despite a history of repeated flooding. “We’re so glad to be able to help,” Patrick said to the crowd at Wiggin Auditorium. “I’m told it’s been five floods in 11 years.” “It might be raining out,” a cheerful Mayor Michael Bonfanti said, “but for me it’s a very sunny day. After many, many years of advocating for assistance, somebody has finally listened.” … The money, originally approved by former Gov. Mitt Romney, will come from the state’s capital improvement budget. “It’s not flush,” Patrick said of the fund. “But it was enough for this.” That’s it. Just [...]

I was struck by the absolute tone from MyDD’s Matt Stoller regarding whether the next President should completely withdraw troops from Iraq, or leave enough for “peacekeeping” and genocide prevention, insofar as either are actually possible. In particular, I was surprised to see him treating Obama advisor Samantha Power like just another political shill. I have to imagine Power knows more about genocide than just about any other presidential campaign advisor in either party — in fact, you might say she wrote the book. And indeed, she warns that a US-enabled genocide may well result from a withdrawal of forces. (Thanks to Keller for first pointing this out.) I give the MyDD guys big-time credit for correctly insisting that opposition to the Iraq War would swing the 2006 election, and that Democrats should not bother to get pulled into a discussion of what they would do differently. As the majority party in a divided government, their job is still to oppose the President, and force him to negotiate. (The President hasn’t gotten the memo, of course.) Congress just doesn’t have much in the way of making military policy, except the blunt instrument of the purse, which they’re now threatening to [...]

Is TPM’s Eric Kleefeld being sarcastic? Wow. A new poll finds that Mitt Romney is getting badly trounced by Rudy Giuliani among GOP Primary voters – in Romney’s home state of Massachusetts. The new Suffolk University poll finds that Rudy is blowing Romney away in Massachusetts (where Romney was Governor for four years, from 2003 through this past January) by a startling 12 points, 33%-21%. John McCain comes in third with 18%, barely behind Romney. Well gosh golly. Maybe if Romney had actually wanted to be governor of Massachusetts, he might have reaped some good will here. Or maybe not. But it’s not like he’s riding his success as chief exec here on to even more magical adventures. He’s toast. I don’t care if he raises a billion dollars, he can’t possibly spend enough to win.

I heard a disturbing piece of information from Representative Jones this morning on AM680.  As far as Jones could determine, out of the 1400+ pork budget amendments, none were about shutting down the loopholes.  Does the Governor have no supporters of this idea on Beacon Hill?

sco points us to the porkfest/”necessary expenditures” of the earmarks list. Hey, it’s not so hard to navigate. Look up your state rep’s earmarks, and tell us if there are any real doozies. Here are a few from my rep, Paul Donato: MR. DONATO of MEDFORD moves that the bill be amended in section 2, in item 7007-0900, by adding the following: “; provided further that not less than $300,000 shall be expended for new seating in the historic Chevalier auditorium in Medford;” (…) REPRESENTATIVES DONATO of MEDFORD and SMITH of EVERETT move that the bill be amended in section 2, in item 4800-1400, by adding the following: “; provided further that not less than $100,000 shall be expended for a domestic violence prevention program called `Teens-At-Risk’, operated by Portal To Hope for the communities of Everett, Lynn, Malden and Medford without the need of approval by the commissioner of public health;” [my emphasis] (…) REPRESENTATIVES DONATO of MEDFORD, FALLON of MALDEN and SMITH of EVERETT move that the bill be amended in section 2, in item 1410-0010, by adding the following: “; provided further that not less than $200,000 shall be expended for the World War II Memorial at [...]

OK, do whatever you want with the dirty money, but it really sucks that “recent comments” don’t get displayed for at least 30 seconds, sometimes never.  My browser just sits there waiting for blogads to wake up before it displays recent comments.  Do other people experience this? Can you tweak SoapBlox so that it displays recent comments before the blogads get displayed?  I’d think your advertisers would want their ads to get displayed eventually, but there’s a technical problem they should know about.  I often hit STOP before the ads even get here, because I can’t stand watching the circling “life going by” firefox icon, so I just stop or click on to another page.  Do you get paid when I hit STOP or click on to another page?  You shouldn’t, because the ads don’t get here, because blogads.com is too slow. My complaint is really to SoapBlox or BlogAds, not to BMG.  Their slow response is interfering with my user experience, and I suspect lots of people’s.  Is there some other way to sell our eyeballs to your advertisers besides making every frontpage.do request call up the same super slow ad over and over?  I’d be willing to go [...]