Blue Mass Group

Is this guy for real??  http://www.joekennedyforsenate…

How’s the hip? I trust all is well with the new dog and hope to see you out on the campaign trail sometime soon. Last time I checked you have a bit of a poop storm up here on Cape Ann in a not-so-little seaside community called Gloucester. Your recent condemnation of the charter process was pretty thoughtful, but then Reville’s email. What the F*** was he thinking and how dumb does the leader of the education establishment in the Commonwealth sound when he tries to play politician. He is not good at it and this little thing called public records, well they have training classes for that. Those classes are for the dumb people so he probably didn’t get the memo. Here is my best advice. Call Rubin in off the campaign trail and have him start putting out the fire. Call Mitch and let him know that he is not as safe as he appears to be given his tired smarter-than-Reville act. Then you may want to explain to Paul that 48 hours is a long time to let this issue sit there without comment, although only Rubin would know what to say. And finally, you hurt your [...]

Except it’s not THAT Joe Kennedy.  Here is the website of a man by that name who appears to have filed as an independent, but whose views trend libertarian.  I can’t help but wonder how many votes he’ll get in the general election based on people thinking he’s the former Congressman and the late Senator’s nephew.

I'm amazed at the reaction in Manny's diary about the high cost of mandated insurance to my suggestion that we could cut costs by not including organ transplants in the mandated plans, and leaving them and other controversial procedures for private supplemental plans if people want them covered.  It is startling how insistent everyone is that organ transplants be part of the public option, and that they be mandated coverage.  I think they're going to be a huge  entitlement that we should prevent as much as possible, by allowing people to opt out and insisting on other cures that don't rely on harvesting dying people''s organs. So here is a new diary on the topic.  It's not intended to rebuke organ donors or recipients, who are only doing what anyone would do and are not to blame for their decisions, so don't be personally offended, and don't base your policy views on your own debt to organ donation, that's water under the bridge.

Here are the addresses to send letters to the editor at the Globe and the Herald: letterstoeditor@bostonherald.com letter@globe.com Here is the address to write the Hyatt’s management [so they will tell their union-busting millionaire bankster bosses they screwed up big time] saying that you, your spouse, your clan, your business, your church’s members [etc] will never spend another penny staying or eating in a Hyatt!  Go get em.  I did. Hyatt address: Executive Director Hyatt Harborside 101 Harborside Drive Boston, MA 02128 Don’t go silent.  Make sure that they feel it in their pocketbooks, their bank accounts, their stock prices – in advance.  Make this a customer relations nightmare! TOGETHER WE CAN!

Of Obama’s early personnel decisions …I think he has chosen wisely…I am not an Obama fan, but I am a fan of our country…He is my President, and we must have him succeed. If he fails, we all fail. Of the Democratic Party: I don’t know personally a single Democrat who is a dope-smoking  hippie that wants to turn us into Soviet Russia. Of the civic duty to trust: We’ve got to pull together, because we are facing dark, dark times. I don’t trust a single weasel in Washington. I don’t care what party they’re from. But unless we trust each other, we’re not going to make. On Glenn Beck – Cover Story Time Magazine September 19,2009 Glenn Beck: A fake, a hypocrite, a fear monger and a whore for FOX money. Glenn Beck – Nothing more than Rupert Murdoch’s expensive call girl.

This past weekend, the Menino campaign went to the airwaves on progressive radio stations with an ad touting his endorsements by Mass NOW (National Organization for Women); Mass Equality (GLBT issues) and the Massachusetts League of Environmental Voters.  These endorsements can be added to backing from the Boston Building Trades, the Ward 5 (Beacon Hill/Back Bay) Democratic Committee and SEIU 1199 and 615, 1199 has gained Menino’s support for organizing workers in the Longwood-area hospitals,and 615 has organized the Justice for Janitors campaign.  Here’s a quote from 1199′s endorsement:

The endorsement follows Mayor Menino’s relentless support for recent organizing drives by Personal Care Attendants and Boston hospital workers. In 2007, the Mayor hosted the kick-off of the 1199 SEIU hospital organizing campaign at City Hall along with Ben Affleck. He later stood in solidarity with hospital workers at the campaign’s first rally in the Longwood Medical Area.

“This is about ensuring the long-term sustainability and prosperity of our city,” said Menino about the efforts of non-union hospital workers to join 1199SEIU, “The healthcare sector is the backbone of Boston’s economy.”

“It’s important that you and your family have good healthcare and good benefits,” Menino told the crowd, “We’ve already done this at Boston Medical Center. They have 1199 SEIU. Why can’t every hospital in the city of Boston have 1199 SEIU?”

Later that year, the Mayor partnered with 1199 SEIU members and the Boston Public Health Commission on a major anti-violence program in Boston known as V.I.P “Violence Intervention and Prevention,” which the Mayor announced at 1199 SEIU’s annual Health Awareness cookout in Dorchester.

The Mayor was also a major advocate for giving PCAs the right to form a union and helped PCAs win their first contract with the state. In 2009, Mayor Menino played a key role in the organizing efforts at St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center and attended the press conference held by Caritas employees following their historic vote.

I have to say that this intro video is pretty impressive for a candidacy that seems to have happened quite quickly.  Unfortunately, the website is not faring as well – as of right now, I get a blank screen at that link.  UPDATE: Over two hours later, still just a blank screen.  Earth to the Khazei internet team … hello?  Bueller? FURTHER UPDATE on the website (Tuesday, 10:30 am): Now there’s a half-baked signup page that, unfortunately, has “Paid for by Romanoff for Colorado, Patricia Barela Rivera, Treasurer” at the bottom.  That seems unlikely.  Someone over at Blue State Digital needs to fix this pronto. FURTHER FURTHER UPDATE (Tuesday 11:30 am): OK, at least there’s a respectable placeholder there now.  Looking forward to seeing the actual site!

Cross-posted from our Main Street blog.

Picture it: You’re a hotel housekeeper. This is not an easy job. Workers in luxury hotels are suffering high rates of injury, especially as beds with heavier mattresses, extra sheets, and heavy duvets, become common while housekeepers are expected to clean the same number of rooms in the same time as before.  (Don’t think you could hurt yourself making beds?  Try lifting an expensive mattress.)

According to an article on a Toronto hotel worker,

A study conducted by Dublin’s union, UNITE HERE, found that room attendants’ injuries are on the rise as hotel ownership consolidates under a few multinationals that compete to out-luxuriate each other with more deluxe beds. Room attendants’ workloads are increasing dramatically but their rate of pay is not changing, nor is the time they’re allotted to clean each room. They are working harder and faster, often skipping breaks and meals. The study, which surveyed over 600 room attendants, reports that 91 percent suffer from job-related pain and most of them take pain medication.

As guests become more comfortable, room attendants are experiencing more pain. Dublin’s shoulders ache from the new Sheraton Sweet Sleeper beds, which have heavier mattresses and are covered with more sheets and pillows than ever before. One co-worker suffers from a torn rotator cuff (an injury common to baseball players), others have sore knees and backs. “Everyone I know has pain,” she says. “It’s criminal for us to be working so hard.”

So you’re working this not-easy, not-glamorous job, cleaning rooms you can’t afford to stay in at serious cost to your body. But hey, at least you’re making a living wage and you have benefits, because you have a union. (Whoops — my bad. These workers are now being helped by the hotel workers union but were not unionized.) So one day the boss tells you to train up some workers who are going to be vacation replacements, and you do it. And then the boss tells you you’re fired, and those vacation replacements you just trained? They’re getting your jobs, and they’ll be paid just over half what you were making-just $8 an hour-and no benefits. You, on the other hand, have no job.

Today, a “Best Practices in the Gambling Industry” conference sponsored by the casino trade was held at Suffolk Downs. To help those who could not attend, here are the trade’s Top 10 “Best Practices”:

1) Base your business model on 90% of the gambling profits coming from 10% of the people who use the product, which makes nine out of every ten patrons virtually irrelevant to your revenues.

2) Design slot machines to “approach every player as a potential addict” by making them operate like “loaded dice”, all in the name of getting the user “to play to extinction” – until all their money is gone. This recent Washington Post op-ed by a respected MIT professor explains it all.

3) Always make the political argument be about jobs, revenues and “inevitability” instead of the business model, the product and the marketing behind it. Which is why you won’t find even one picture of a slot machine on our website.