Blue Mass Group

Developing … http://www.boston.com/news/loc…

FDL’s Emptywheel, aka Marcy Wheeler, is looking to not only become a full time blogger, but to have a real team with a (small) investigative staff and two staff writers — and Jane Hamsher’s asking you to donate. Actually, she’s a little frustrated that she has to ask you to donate. I’ve been trying for months to get funding for Marcy so she can do what she does full time. I’ve been turned down by every major donor and donor representative I’ve asked. They’d rather create their own “astroturf” blogs. Every time donors decide that there is value in what bloggers do, there is a class of donor “gatekeeper” who siphon off the money and create projects they control that get no traffic except what bloggers generate by linking to them. They act as “consultants,” advising organizations to their own benefit with all the attendant conflicts of interest. It’s “fake blogging,” it’s not real. But it happens over and over again. That’s just how the system works, and I’ll be writing more about it. Alas, the democratic party and our allies just don’t quite get the netroots yet, but what can we do? We need this sort of investigative journalism, [...]

The Massachusetts League of Environmental Voters (MLEV) today released an environmental assessment of the first two years of the Patrick Administration.  The report focuses on the Governor’s actions on 18 key environmental issues, using input from environmental leaders throughout the state. The Administration’s overall record was strong with 11 topics receiving positive scores, 3 negative, and 4 mixed marks.

The discussion here earlier today about taxes, the state budget, and new House Speaker Robert DeLeo was really about the workings of the House and the state of democracy in it. That is the focus of a story in the new issue of CommonWealth magazine, due out tomorrow. Because the budget debate has made the topic so timely, we have posted the story early on our website. Click here to read “Strings attached.” Michael Jonas Executive Editor CommonWealth

Update: “Wind power gets major boost”; Future Cape Winds won't have to wait 10 years to get approved. Macro-change, top-down change. An interesting, if somewhat opaque story from the NYT magazine Sunday shows social scientists working on the problem of environmental consciousness: Why do we seem unable to come to grips with and prioritize a problem of such enormous magnitude? Two days after Barack Obama was sworn in as president of the United States, the Pew Research Center released a poll ranking the issues that Americans said were the most important priorities for this year. At the top of the list were several concerns — jobs and the economy — related to the current recession. Farther down, well after terrorism, deficit reduction and en­ergy (and even something the pollsters characterized as “moral decline”) was climate change. It was priority No. 20. That was last place. I think one could very reasonably say that “the environment” (i.e. global warming) is by far the single most important and urgent issue facing us. I'm not sure I believe that folks think of the issue as distant; after all, weather is hardly distant, and air and water are hardly abstract. (noternie has pointed out [...]

According to the Boston Globe, if you use Craigslist, you may get hacked up into little pieces, served baked, with fine wine. Or something like that. Anyone feel like the Globe should have included a disclaimer? Something akin to, “Note: Craigslist is one of the Globe’s biggest competitors in actually making money. They took our lucrative business and put it online, for free. And now the Times is threatening us to close! We hate Craigslist.”

Am I right, or am I right? In fact, I’m sure newspapers and media across the country are only too happy to shine a light on Craigslist. Editorial pages will soon be demanding congressional hearings, no doubt. Some sensible advice on life, media and anonymous sex Craigslist below the fold.  

Environment Massachusetts Calls for Supporters to Postpone Earth Day Celebrations . . . . . . Until They Call on Congress to Repower America with Clean Energy This Earth Day, America has a real opportunity to harness the power of clean energy to transform our economy and protect the earth, according to Environment Massachusetts.  The group is calling on clean energy supporters across the Bay State to postpone their Earth Day celebrations for five minutes today and first ask their member of Congress to rebuild the economy with clean energy and stop global warming. “Today is Earth Day but this year more than ever it is a time for action before celebration,” said Environment Massachusetts Field Organizer Winston Vaughan.  ”We’ve made tremendous progress cleaning up our air and water since the first Earth Day, but we now face our biggest challenge yet in global warming.” On Tuesday, Congress began four days of legislative hearings with dozens of experts providing testimony on the American Climate and Energy Security Act, a massive energy bill that is moving quickly in the House.  The bill answers President Obama’s call for comprehensive clean energy and global warming legislation that “that places a market-based cap on [...]

Rep. Jane Harman Tried to Kill NSA Wiretapping Story — May Have Swayed 2004 Election

The New York Times confirmed late Monday that a top Democratic congresswoman called the paper in 2004 and tried to keep it from publishing an article exposing the Bush Administration’s warrantless wiretapping program — possibly helping to sway the balance in the 2004 presidential election.

That’s bad enough – asking the NYT to not publish a major story that might have helped her party’s nominee win the Presidency.  

If you read today’s Boston Globe Boston University Medical School has taken up a defensive position against any criticism of its admission policies and monitoring of its medical students in light of the Phillip Markoff case.

BU Med has gone so far as to issue a not so vailed threat to its current medical students to not talk to the press about the Phillip Markoff case – basically telling the public it is none of its business what happens behind the doors of Boston University Medical School.

I would disagree and think Boston University Medical School’s response raises questions far beyond the guilt or innocence of one of its students.

I believe it is time, just as Catholic seminaries have done in the wake of the sexual abuse cases in the Church, for Boston University and all accredited medical schools to begin a process of an on-going psychological well-being testing of its incoming and current medical students to set a base line – if possible – of mental health fitness to become a physician.

There has to be more to admittance into medical school than a high score on the Medical Admission Tests and high grades in college.

Perhaps, some medical schools are doing this already but the process must become more open and transparent. There have been pockets of aberrant and criminal behavior of practicing physicians. Is this normal or above the norm compared to the populus at large and similar high stress professions? The difference with the medical profession is that it deals with life and death matters where most other professions do not and with that comes a high degree of responsibility to the public to insure as much as possible that medical schools are turning out mentally healthy practioners.

Boston University Medical School may have just acted hastily in trying to silence its students but it raises more questions than it answers.

And the question it raises here is what is Boston University Medical School trying to hide if anything and do they have a responsibility within its training procedures to identify potential problematic psychological conditions of its students?  

Speaker Bob Deleo’s comments in today’s Globe says much about his leadership style.

He has none.

The state’s heart rate is flat lining and CPR can only be given by legislation which, pursuant to our state constitution, is driven by the House.

But where is the leadership? Freshmen reps aren’t the only ones befuddled. Today’s story is a perfect example. In one breath DeLeo declares what he wants and doesn’t want but then he puts it all on the members.  I am starting to believe that Bobby has no clue.

So last week we had all sorts of revenue amendments coming forward with no real direction.

Deleo makes George Keverian look like George Patton.