Blue Mass Group

Legislators who regard state parkland as a vital personal resource will be watching closely next month to see if the Patrick administration blesses a plan to convert a 3.2 acre portion of the Blue Hills Reservation in Randolph into a 400-space parking lot for Paul Hart of Cohasset, owner of the adjacent Lantana function hall.

Lawmakers wishing to convey public land to businesses and individuals need to know that such transfers, once approved by law, will not be second-guessed by state officials.

Bulldozing heirloom conservation lands to create vast parking lots reduces the drain on public resources that parklands impose, and likewise increases taxable real estate. Many such lots are open to the public year round, and are especially accessible on Sundays and holidays.

This starts out with the spinners Candy Crowley and Bill Schneider talking about the debate in a “Pregame Show”  Lou Dobss is hosting the pre-debate and obviously setting up his preferred narrative – illegal immigration – as the frame to view the contest. 

We are excited to announce that we will begin airing our Sixth television ad in New Hampshire — “Chances I Had.” The thirty-second ad discusses Sen. Obama’s plan to ensure every child gets the same educational opportunities that allowed him to succeed, and he stresses parents’ responsibility to do their part in helping kids learn.

This morning, the Rev. Al Sharpton came down hard on Senate Democrats, particularly Presidential hopeful Chris Dodd. He blasted the failure of Senate Democrats to support their colleagues in the House in preventing the Bush Administration/HUD with their attempt to completely eliminate downpayment assistance programs. Sharpton noted how downpayment assistance programs (DAPs) — where nonprofits utilize private funds, with zero Federal money, to help qualified working families gain the 3% downpayment necessary for gaining a FHA insured home loan — allowed more than 600,000 to people become homeowners in the past decade. The GAO reports that if downpayment assistance is done away with, 30% of African-American homebuyers and potentially 20% of Latinos will be unable to utilize FHA insured loans.  This is about realizing the American dream and breaking the chain of poverty. Eliminating downpayment assistance is just another way of forcing millions of minorities to continue renting on the apartment plantation. A study by the Milken Institute found that low-income homeowners who used DAPs gained an average of $19,000 in net wealth. Owning a home allows folks to build assets, create generational wealth, and ultimately strengthen families and revitalize communities because people can find the funds necessary to send [...]

Originally Posted on

The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) recently partnered with Blue America in order to hold Rahm Emanuel accountable for his anti-migrant posturing as the representative of one of the most diverse congressional districts in the nation (Illinois’ 5th Congressional District).

ICIRR began this fight with a rubber chicken campaign at YearlyKos (see left) in an effort to get Emmanuel to stand for migrant rights. 

The exact opposite happened.  After a close electoral fight in Massachusetts, Emmanuel assumed the role of Tom Tancredo of the Democrats, and issued this comment to the Washington Post:

“This issue has real implications for the country. It captures all the

American people’s anger and frustration not only with immigration, but

with the economy,” said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus and an architect of the Democratic congressional victories of 2006. “It’s self-evident. This is a big problem.”
    - Jonathan Weisman – Washington Post

Democrats were running scared after the Massachusetts special election, but an overwhelmingly different picture was painted after the recent local elections in Virginia.  There Republicans failed miserably on an anti-migrant agenda and now the tides have changed.

This is something we all ought to call our Reps about:

But this I get: the mortgage industry lobby is winning in its fight to turn around strong legislation that would have prohibited the payment of “yield spread premiums” to mortgage brokers.

That would have saved a lot of you a lot of money.

What’s a yield spread premium? Basically, if you go to a mortgage broker and ask him to get you a good mortgage deal, he takes your financial information and goes out on the market to see what he can get for you. You go merrily along, thinking your broker is working for you, trying to get you the best deal he can.

Meanwhile, he talks to lenders and gets you the best rate he can get based on what you qualify for, only get this: he’s under no obligation to actually tell you what the best deal he can get really is. Instead, he can tack on some extra points to your mortgage rate and just tell you that was the deal instead. And if you agree to take it, guess who gets paid the extra money?

That’s right. The mortgage broker you thought was working to get you the best rate available. If a lender says you qualify for a loan at 5%, but your mortgage broker thinks you’ll accept 5.25% and he turns out to be right, part of that extra .25% goes to him, and you’re none the wiser.

Sound fair to you?

Well, the House Financial Services Committee, in its consideration of H.R. 3915, is under tremendous pressure to let it slide.

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Craig Smith, the founder and artistic director of Boston’s Emmanuel Music since 1970, died yesterday at the much-too-young age of 60.  He had suffered from diabetes for many years, and heart failure related to his diabetes was the cause of death (in a painful irony, yesterday was the first “World Diabetes Day“).  Tributes to Craig appear on Emmanuel Music’s website, in today’s Globe, and on the website of New England Conservatory, where he was both a student and a faculty member.  Also, WGBH radio (89.7 FM) is devoting much of its classical music programming today to recordings of Craig and Emmanuel Music, including a complete performance of Mozart’s Requiem at 3 pm.

I had the extraordinary privilege of working with Craig for the last decade or so.  Some personal reflections are on the flip.

Tom Birmingham would be a great choice to lead the Boston Public Library. I’m sure Joan Vennochi would not have mentioned his name today unless he was a viable candidate. Of course this would be a Billy Bulger play. Which ain’t a bad thing when we’re talking about books. But anyhoo, Birmingham was by far the best candidate in the Democratic gubernatorial field 5 years ago. He was the one politician who had the vision and did 90% of the leg work for the successful education reform package. He also used his power to support many progressive causes when other’s in power cared not to. Unfortunately, he ran a campaign that looked worse than the flem  he coughed up this morning. Tom told those who would listen, over and over again, that he was a Rhodes Scholar from the mean streets of Chelsea who went to Harvard and Harvad Law. And he still lived there. How could you not vote for him? Easy Tom. (I voted for him anyway) ——————————————– There are only two things to point to this go around regarding Deval and his close advisors not knowing what the hell they are doing. Number One. He sets himself [...]

Again, today's deadline day to get insurance, if you don't already have it … Longtime commenter Cos holds forth on his experience with the new health care “products”, and makes an important clarification:  Actually, for truly “lower income” folks, the plans we have under Commonwealth Care are excellent.  It's the best health insurance I've ever had, the easiest to use, and I dread my upcoming switch back to an employer-sponsored or similar other plan.  It's only when you get above 300% of poverty that the insurance available starts to be a problem.  For a single person, that's about $31,000/year.  So it's the lower-middle income people that will have a problem getting health insurance.  Note, however, that the Connector can designate a window where based on your income, no “afforable” plan is available, and so you don't get penalized for not buying one.  I believe the window for single people is currently from the Commonwealth Care cutoff up to about $40,000/year (and there's a proportionally equivalent window for people in other status, like couples or parents, above whatever their 300% of poverty is).  The great success of the new health care law is the great health insurance we now offer to [...]