Blue Mass Group

Kevin McCrea’s Position on our Public Schools

Please find below the fold Kevin McCrea’s position on the Public Schools in Boston.

The highlights are as follows:

• No cuts to the school budget, teachers, or programs

• No expansion of the cap on the Charter Schools

• As Mayor, he will visit every school in the system every two years to accentuate the positive, and fix the problems

• Insist on good schools in every neighborhood, so we can move to eliminate busing and put that extra money right back into the schools

Kevin McCrea says:   “Education will be my number one priority as Mayor.   I believe in equally excellent schools for all of our children, not just a few lucky enough to win a lottery.   I am a product of public schools, and I received an excellent education in those schools, so I know that we can provide an excellent education for our children in our public schools as well.”

“Our Public Schools are good enough for the progeny of Candidates Flaherty, Menino and Yoon, why aren’t those schools good enough for all of our children?”     We spend about 40 percent of our City Budget on the School system so I don’t think it is too much to ask that our Mayor spend 20 percent of his time, one day a week, on visiting the schools and ensuring that we have great schools throughout our city.   Kevin McCrea made that simple promise four years ago.   If the other candidates had shown that same work ethic over the past four years, we wouldn’t be reading stories about the atrocious state of our schools,  and school sports programs, and the terrible drop out rate.

About the Charter Cap, McCrea says:  ”As a recent Boston Globe article by James Vaznis highlighted, the Charter Schools are not taking their fair share of  English Language Learners and Special Education students.    Not until the Charter schools take a more representative group of students should we be talking about expanding the Cap.”

“I look forward to the hard work required to make sure all our students get a great education.”

Subject: SAVE THE DATE: Town Hall Forum with Senator John F. Kerry Information as received: The Senator will host a town hall forum on Wednesday, September 2nd, in Somerville. While the forum is open and not exclusively focused on health care reform, as the dominant political issue of the day we expect it to be a major point of discussion. We’d welcome your attendance and voice on this and other vital issues. Thanks as always for all of your participation and input on the health care debate. This Town Hall Forum with Senator John F. Kerry will be in an “open forum” format, with attendance apparently “first come first served.” Senator Kerry will hold an open town hall forum to discuss any and all issues facing the people of Massachusetts.  The forum will cover a broad range of issues and is open to all constituents as space allows. WHO: Senator John Kerry,Massachusetts Constituents WHAT:  Town Hall Forum WHERE:   Somerville High School Auditorium, 81 Highland Avenue WHEN:  Wednesday, Sept 2nd   7:30 – 9:00 PM

It’s a major news day here at the ACLU of Massachusetts – we just found out that Attorney General Eric Holder going to go forward with the previously reported CIA prisoner abuse cases, and he’s already appointed a prosecutor. John Durham, a 25-year veteran of the Justice Department, will head the investigation into the approximately 12 cases of alleged prisoner abuse. That’s not all. On the heels of this announcement, the Obama administration revealed that an entirely new office will be created to handle all future interrogations. From an NPR news post: “The High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group will be managed by the FBI, although it will continue to draw upon interrogation experts at the CIA, the Defense Department and other agencies. A director for the office has yet to be named, but the number two official will come from a U.S. intelligence agency. Under new rules, U.S. interrogators will be required to adhere to the Army Field Manual’s regulations on interrogations. This will limit the use of some harsher techniques, including sleep deprivation, while other controversial techniques – including waterboarding – have already been banned.” We applaud the leadership involved with these decisions . Both measures are set to increase [...]

Someone remind me exactly what I voted for last November? NYT: The Obama administration will continue the Bush administration’s practice of sending terror suspects to third countries for detention and interrogation, but will monitor their treatment to insure they are not tortured, administration officials said on Monday. But, why send them to foreign countries unless they will be tortured, and-or their “arrests” (whatever that means in the context of being kidnapped by U.S. agents in a third county) were improper. In sum, an attempt to continue the Bush administration’s end run around our laws. Signing statements that assert a unilateral Presidential power to rewrite laws. Indefinite detention without trial. A withdrawal from Iraq roughly in line with that proposed by President Bush — which is to say, an indefinite occupation army. A dramatic increase in spending on the war in Afghanistan without any clear statement of our objective there. Lots of money for bankers. At this rate, I won’t be very surprised if the big push for health care reform winds up as the Bush prescription drug benefit 2.0: top dollar for health care corporations, happy talk for everyone else. I’m full of hope, but in the “Significant Changes from [...]

Why do these people waste their time? As we all know, everything is wonderful in Blueland! http://www.rasmussenreports.co…  

Torture – and our previous Administration’s shady past with it – have been hot topics lately, with many of us calling for actual accountability on behalf of our former leaders. We may soon get our wish – just today, the New York Times published a story that details the Office of Professional Responsibility’s formal advice to open several C.I.A. prisoner abuse cases that were shelved for undisclosed reasons. Attorney General Eric Holder is expected to step up and pursue the cases, which could mean criminal prosecution for guilty parties in the agency. From the story: “Mr. Holder, who questioned the thoroughness of previous inquiries by the Justice Department, is expected to announce within days his decision on whether to appoint a prosecutor to conduct a new investigation; in legal circles, it is believed to be highly likely that he will go forward with a fresh criminal inquiry.” The cases themselves (of which there are approximately twelve) involve allegations of severe prisoner abuse, including “how C.I.A. officers carried out mock executions and threatened at least one prisoner with a gun and a power drill.” Manadel al-Jamadi’s 2003 death (which occurred as he was being held by the C.I.A.) is among the [...]

Cross-posted from Blue News Tribune. WASHINGTON-President Barack Obama has approved creation of a new, special terrorism-era interrogation unit to be supervised by the White House, a top aide said Monday, further distancing his administration from President George W. Bush’s detainee policies. The administration has also decided that all U.S. interrogators will follow the rules for detainees laid out by the Army Field Manual, according to senior administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the decision. That decision aims to end years of fierce debate over how rough U.S. personnel can get with terror suspects in custody. http://www.boston.com/news/nat… Hurray! Nonetheless, the spokesman added, Obama believes the attorney general should be fully independent from the White House and he has full faith in Holder to make the decision on whether to reopen several such cases with an eye toward possible criminal prosecution. “He ultimately is going to make the decisions,” Burton said of Holder. CIA Director Leon Panetta said in an e-mail message to agency employees Monday that he intends “to stand up for those officers who did what their country asked and who followed the legal guidance they were given. That is the [...]

Cross posted from Stop Predatory Gambling

Public discussions around predatory gambling continue to focus mostly on superficial aspects like how “momentum is building for slot machines” yet there is virtually no analysis of the product or business model for which “momentum is building.” This story from today’s Boston Globe is a good example.

There are many well-intentioned public officials who promote predatory gambling who have very little understanding about the product itself and the business model because if they did, most would likely be strong opponents.

Because how can anyone defend a product that is designed to get its users “to play to extinction” which means until all of their money is gone?

Who can support a business model based on 90% of the gambling profits coming from 10% of the people who use the product which means nine out ten people who visit a casino, the casual players, are virtually irrelevant to their revenues?

The city of Boston has just rolled out a very cool new online tool that allows you to report and track maintenance requests, see political boundaries and police districts, and all kinds of other useful information.  The Herald poked around a bit and found this: Here is some data gleaned from the city’s new GIS data portal, which includes service requests to the mayor’s hotline from July 1 to the present: The most common complaint to the mayor’s hotline was for missed trash pickup, which made up 13 percent of service requests. Pothole repair comprised 9 percent of service requests. Twenty-four percent of sanitation complaints came from Dorchester, the most in the city. Of 290 calls for street lighting repair, 48 are unresolved. It is no doubt entirely coincidental that the preliminary election is about a month away.  Regardless, though, this is a very welcome development.  Explore it, and let us know what you find!

There is a strong argument and comparison that can be made between the gilded age of the 1920s and the past 30 years of our nation’s economy. The 1920s was an era of unprecedented growth and economic prosperity. President Hoover stated “a chicken in every pot”; this was true, and our nation was in the midst of a great economic upturn that some claimed would never falter. This was also a time when there wasn’t a hint of regulation and a national sentiment of small, non-intrusive government in the marketplace. That era gave way to one of the most devastating eras of this country’s history: the Great Depression. The nation saw itself continuing down the slippery slope of faulty, unregulated and mismanaged business and banking, which ultimately brought forth the depression of the 1930s. It wasn’t until President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal that created a safety net and began setting up commissions and boards like the National Labor Relations Board to oversee businesses, banks and the stock market, which gave the American public the assurance that the economy would be more stable and would not allow the mistakes of the 1920s to recur. The United States would [...]