Of course it’s not just a NYC problem. 39% of all Americans, 123 million of us, live in coastal communities. 50% of our nation’s shoreline — 11,200 miles of it — are highly vulnerable to sea level rise. NOAA warns that extra water is a threat in storms, flooding previously safe areas.

via Clean energy now or chaos | CapeCodToday.Com.

On the same page is Menino’s adaptation plan for Boston, due next year.

I’m baffled as to how climate has not been an issue in the Senate campaign. We’re the Bay State. There’s going to be a lot more Bay and a lot less State over the next 100 years. Might be of some concern to someone.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised, because campaign “coverage” generally means that our professional media cover what the campaigns say about themselves and each other. Our media generally doesn’t use its power to fully cover an issue of grave concern and push it into a campaign.

I can think of a few reasons why climate hasn’t gotten more oxygen, none of which are adequate:

• Rep. Markey has such an advantage on this issue that it’s just not even a fair fight. So? Should there not be competition of ideas?
• Gomez has come out as a “Green Republican”, so, you know, it’s off the table somehow. See above. If Gomez wants the Green mantle, let him fight for it, not simply assert it.
• The campaigns themselves have not decided to make it central, instead making guns, choice, and … um … whatever Gomez talks about. Well, who cares what the campaigns say? Is our electoral discourse to be left up to message-hacks and professional propagandists? Are we accountable to them, or the other way around?

(Oh, but I slay myself. Norman Rockwell and Frank Capra are long dead, the cute nostalgic Hummel figurines of democracy. Mr. Potter won and won big; we live in his world.)

Again, the media can drive a public interest agenda when they want.
Spying and privacy have gotten plenty of attention and forced themselves into the political discussion party because media types are very close to it. I don’t necessarily think there’s anything wrong with that in this particular case — just demonstrating that they can do it when they want.

A savage servility slides by on grease.

David Bernstein says Ed’s speech was “rousing”. I’d repost video if it were available from the campaign … Help a blogger out?

And now Bill Clinton is coming to Worcester on Saturday, says Levenson. This is a full court press. Is it “desperate”? No — I sincerely doubt that they actually take seriously the McLaughlin (ie. Republican) poll that showed the race basically even. The roughly seven point lead that’s been shown in a variety of polls lines up quite nicely with recent election experience: Warren beat Brown by 7+;  and Deval beat Charlie Baker by 6.4%. So this is not remarkable. A reasonable take is that a.) The Dems want to take no chances; b.) Obama and Clinton are popular, welcome, and available, and c.) Markey’s been around long enough to be able to call in some favors. And who knows, maybe they just like the guy.

We’ll meet at 11am at Mt. Vernon Restaurant in Somerville, 14 Broadway, near to the Sullivan Square Orange Line stop. We’ll have turfs cut and hit the streets at noon.

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I gotta be able to get 10 people from this blog to show up, walk around and talk up Ed Markey with folks, right? Especially so close to Boston. It’ll be great. Sign up in the comments or drop me a line, charley at blue mass group dot com. We don’t get together often enough, for all kinds of good reasons. But let’s get together, bring this special election home, and take credit for a glorious victory on the evening of June 25.

While the Cherokee silliness could maintain attention in a Presidential election year, I doubt that “pond scum” can do the same in a special. Markey’s ads are accurate and fairly effective, but dutiful and restrained; while Gomez’s “Dirty Ed Markey” ad seems like a defensive, goofy 1994-era retread. Term limits? What is this, 1994? Even the tax issue, that predictable GOP saw, cuts mostly the liberal way these days: Most people feel the rich should pay more. And on guns and choice, Markey’s got Gomez’s number.

Today we hear the welcome news that Gomez actually accepts that humans kinda sorta cause global warming, and that it’s a problem. (It’s such a low bar for us to be happy with Republicans, like applauding a toddler for using the toilet instead of the floor.) But the big question is What does he plan to do about it? Does he plan to fight for strong global warming legislation — the way that Ed Markey already has done? Does he oppose Keystone XL? (No.) Does he support home-grown wind power? (No.) Can he take on the lunatic elements of his own party, getting his elbows dirty in the hard work of consensus-making and legislation? Or does he continue the Scott Brown method, to waver, posture, and preen, and wait for the grapes of bipartisanship to be dangled over his mouth this way, just a little more?

So yeah, the race remains a little weird, a little amorphous-feeling. But perhaps the debate Wednesday night will give us some things to chew on.

Having spent 36 years actually doing legislative work, Markey may lack the tangy zip of a Deval Patrick or Elizabeth Warren. (I’ve even heard some media critiques of his clipped “Mayor Quimby” accent — Isn’t this still Massachusetts??) Maybe so. But he’s got better than “charisma” — he’s got an identity. “Congressman” is not an insult, as Gomez says; it’s an honor and a damned important job. Ask anyone suffering from the “sequestration” cuts — from Head Start kids to biomedical researchers — whether Congress’s work — or dysfunction — matters. You don’t notice it until it doesn’t get done.

Markey can play to his strengths. He needs to present himself as principled, in touch, experienced, and expert-not-condescending on policy. And perhaps most importantly, he should look forward and say what he wants to do as Senator. The big danger of an experienced candidate is that one wonders if his best days are behind him. Markey’s got the requisite energy, but he needs to highlight his program, how he intends to apply his experience to a new job.

I don’t know what Gomez has going for him beyond his experience as Navy Seal. That’s an ace in his hand, a genuine accomplishment; but what else has he got? He’s plausibly charismatic … but to what purpose? Does he have positions or a message that resonate with the voting public? Is he riding a wave of anti-incumbent or anti-Democratic disgust? It seems like his best hope is that Markey seems asleep, aloof, or otherwise out-of-touch, and he seems more plugged in, like he listens better. That’s the Brown/Coakley formula, but one that depends on the Democrat(s) being caught napping. But it still seems like an awfully weak hand to play.

Markey is an accomplished public servant with an excellent justification for running, and being elected Senator. It doesn’t always turn out that the best-qualified person runs, or that he wins. But besides his résumé, temperament, and requisite energy level, it’s his commitment to good quality public service that distinguishes him, even among other Democrats in Congress. It’s such an old-fashioned, Norman Rockwell/Frank Capra concept, one that gets lost in our understandable contempt for Washington’s dysfunction, plutocracy and misanthropy. Service, commitment to justice, and legislative results aren’t flashy; they’re not good reality-TV; but they’re still what matter.

When you vote for Markey on June 25, you’re voting for a workhorse, not a showhorse. That’s good enough, and I hope that’s what comes across on Wednesday.

Mike Capuano wrote recently in the Globe how the Republicans are so afraid that Obamacare The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act might work, that they’re dedicating themselves to making sure it doesn’t:

Republicans have denied funding for essential preparations and made it plain they will resist confirmation of presidential nominees needed to administer it. Moreover, the Republican-led House has voted to defund the law and targeted specific aspects of it. They have voted to withhold salaries for employees who will set up health care exchanges, the marketplace where consumers will go to choose a plan. They have voted to repeal funding for school-based health care centers and voted numerous times to eliminate the Prevention Trust Fund. You don’t have to be a doctor to recognize that preventing illness is cheaper than treating it. Eliminating funding for programs like this will result in higher health care costs.

And then you’ve got Jim DeMint and the Heritage Foundation trying to throw a monkey wrench into the works, with endless public FUD:

While opposition to the health-care program is nothing new, the tactics are changing. Rather than focusing on repealing the law in Congress and the courts, two avenues that have failed so far, the groups are aiming to prevent the cornerstone of the legislation, the insurance exchanges, from succeeding. Their goal is to limit enrollments, drive up costs, and make it easier to roll back all or part of the law later.

“If you’re committed to making sure Obamacare doesn’t go into effect, you have to focus on the expansion and on the exchanges,” said Dan Holler, a spokesman for Heritage Action. “Once you have people under a program, it’s really hard to change that system no matter how badly it needs change.”

Aha. “The law won’t work. So we need to prevent it from working.” That makes a hell of a lot of sense.

The law is, in fact, working. This is not news to us in Massachusetts since we have a quite similar system already; which is functional, does what it’s supposed to do, enjoys wide support, and is non-controversial. Go us. This will likely be a similar experience in those states, like California and Oregon, that are putting in a good-faith, vigorous effort to create the exchanges, negotiate with plans, and make the pricing system transparent.

And young people have been benefiting from the law in precisely the way it was intended: Less exposure to crippling medical bills. (My goodness, did Congress actually do right by young adults for once??)

In the New England Journal of Medicine, the RAND analysis found that the new law resulted in $147 million in hospital bills charged to private insurance companies in 2011.

“Some of those costs would have been born by individuals,” said Mulcahy. “Some of those costs would have been ultimately been born by hospitals as uncompensated care.”

The population that gets benefits from the Affordable Care Act will continue to grow. And people are going to remember those 37 repeal votes and the endless mischief and toying with people’s lives, as embodying the Republican brand.

Good luck with that, fellas.

So, there’s this. Gomez responds to Markey’s very normal, sober, and fair ads, with a flailing one of his own.

Today Gomez calls Markey — yes, this is true — “pond scum” for actually airing an ad based on Gomez’s attempted Swift-Boating of Obama with regard to the killing of Bin Laden. Yup, Gomez went there, wherever *there* is.

Now, let’s take a look at what Gomez really objects to: Purportedly, it’s that his face was shown opposite Osama Bin Laden’s in Markey’s web ad. I guess without seeing it, if you squint your brain really hard, you could entertain the possibility that there’s some kind of subliminal guilt-by-association going on there …

OK, but really. Look at the ad. LOOK AT IT.

Who shows up opposite Gomez’s face right before Bin Laden? The dude with a 61% approval rating in Massachusetts. For crying out loud, Markey might as well have had Gomez next to a picture of Ted freakin’ Williams and a case of Sam Adams. (You want a dirty Bin Laden juxtaposition? Try this one — never been surpassed.)

And in other events, David Bernstein notes the genius work from the Parachute Patrol at GOP HQ:

Eye-Roller of the Day

The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) put out a release today screaming that “Ed Markey is the first to violate the “People’s Pledge.”” That would be the pledge that is not in effect, because Gabriel Gomez refused to sign it.

I mean, wow.

Here’s what it all boils down to: Gomez has a problem, kind of a Martha Coakley problem, actually: He’s got no particular reason to run. He doesn’t really know why he’s in this, except that gosh he’s a really swell guy with a nice resume (Navy SEAL – at least party true!) and he wants to be a Senator well just because it’s the next thing to do.

And so he’s attacking Markey for not signing something he himself refuses to sign. He’s making goofy, easily and widely disproved accusations. He attacks Markey for, well, a long and distinguished career in public service, by campaigning with another fellow with a long and occasionally-distinguished career in public service.

And so we have an utterly trivial campaign so far — at least as presented in the media. Markey goes around the state talking about the Brain State, climate, guns, innovation, yadda yadda and it’s all great — good sensible things I like to hear. And yet his opponent — who strategically needs to start a fight, in order to get attention — engages him on the level of such inanity. Imagine the campaign that we *could* have, as if ideas and policy actually mattered. But this goofiness exists because Gomez has so little to challenge Markey with.

What I don’t understand, and what I didn’t understand in 2010, is why the Dems don’t make the GOP own every last rotten drop of their hostility to the uninsured, the sick, the less fortunate. The GOP voted against those who came up against “rescission”; those who went over their “lifetime limits” of coverage; those who had “pre-existing conditions”; those who couldn’t afford to see a doctor, and those who couldn’t buy insurance under any circumstances.

First of all … I know Obama has come to like the term “Obamacare”. Well, I don’t. People who think they don’t like Obama will not like the PPACA, even if they like what’s in it. It’s called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act for a reason: That’s us it’s talking about; that’s us it affects — not him.

At last year’s convention, the Dems did a quite decent job of playing to the obvious strengths of the Affordable Care Act: They showed off families who would have otherwise been in dire straits, who had already benefitted from its provisions. I mean, the Republicans have voted against these people 37 times.

Shall there be no political price for that? Do you think you could make a pretty damn tough, accurate, and richly deserved political attack ad with these families? Isn’t it political malpractice – practically immoral — not to do so?

It was thought by many Democrats that once the benefits of the Affordable Care Act – regulatory and monetary – started to flow and become palpable to many Americans, that it would become self-evident to many Americans who was looking out for them. That may well be the case in the places where the Affordable Care Act is not being actively sabotaged: Oregon and Washington, for instance, have implemented their health care marketplaces and are seeing real competition with big benefits to consumers.

And as for the purportedly “up for grabs” voting demographic of the moment, it turns out that most Latino voters are quite protective of the PPACA.

“This is going to hurt Republicans,” said Matt Barreto, cofounder of Latino Decisions, a nonpartisan national polling firm. “When Republicans keep saying they will repeal the health law, Latinos hear the party is going to take away their healthcare.”

HELLO. There is nothing essential about Latino descent that makes one value health care. If the pro-PPACA message is working with this demographic, then why not beyond?

But – there will be the states that have refused to expand Medicaid. There are the states trying to kneecap the exchanges — self-sabotage in the end, but still. And indeed, there will be real challenges of implementation, even with good faith involvement from policy makers. All these will be used by the saboteurs themselves — and the ignorant enablers in the press — that it’s failing somehow.

But the reasons for the PPACA’s existence aren’t going away. And if not, then the GOP has a lot to answer for.

Since the GOP has positioned itself against Patient Protection and Affordable Care, why should we not agree in the strongest possible terms? I anticipated in 2010 that we’d make the opponents pay a price. How can we not do so in 2014?

It accurately states that Ed Markey supports an assault weapons ban and limiting the size of magazines, the “kind used in the Newtown shooting”; and that Gomez does not.

Gomez is now complaining, “Markey blames me for the horrific Newtown shooting”. Garbage. It does no such thing. The ad is as simple and decent as a contrast ad can be: “I believe this. My opponent believes that. You have a choice.”

It does amply demonstrate that Gomez holds an unpopular position among MA voters — and one whose consequences are unfortunately fresh in our memories.

You know, Mr. Gomez, no one is making you take that position. If you think that an accurate description of your position makes you look bad … well, only you can fix that.

divestment is one thing, investment quite another…

… almost by definition =-)

Today, fossil fuel companies represent two of the ten largest investments in the both the Public Retiree Investment Trust (PRIT) fund’s $9.4b domestic and $8.2b international equity portfolios. An additional $780 million invested across three other portfolios means the Commonwealth invests around $1.3 billion in state assets in fossil fuels.

While “investing” in fossil fuels often carries with it less risk of loss of principle, and increased chance of returns and dividends, and thus makes it a good “investment”, when seen from a purely mercenary point of view, it really isn’t “investment” in the sense I think you mean: buying stock in Exxon is buying stock in the churn of drill, refine, burn, gasp and, you’re not really making anything better. In addition, there is unlikely to be any sort of multiplier. You might help Exxon pump crude out of the ground faster. You might fund another, bigger, tanker that’ll (hopefully safely) get the crude to the refinery). But you’re not investing in much progress. If anything, you’re working against the present state of things where most modes of conveyance, cars, boats, airplanes and trains are in a race to become more fuel efficient. The actual process of turning crude into petrol isn’t all that different from the cracking processes first invented in the 1890′s and refined in the 1920′s. It’s an industry in stasis and unlikely to change. The only thing that will change is the amount of crude available. I had hopes when British Petroleum tried to change it’s name to “Beyond Petroleum” but they suffer, distinctly, from the same issue described here: the lure of easy cash returns rather than real progress.

But specifically investing in renewables is specifically investing in progress: things will need to be built, problems solved, infrastructures built and maintained, and energy delivered. As such, it’s a real investment and, bonus, likely to have a more potent multiplier and a much longer shelf life. Personally, and for those reasons, I’d like to see that 1.3b spent chasing progress, perhaps even eventually being chased by it, rather than simply chasing more bucks in an ever diminishing spiral of diminishing returns. But I don’t think of it as ‘divestment’ in fossil fuels but ‘investment’ in progress.

Yeah. If you’re running the state’s investment fund and investing in fossil fuels, you’re betting against the state’s interests. You could invest that money elsewhere and get a decent return without directly hastening catastrophe. As a candidate Steve Grossman talked about using the state’s funds to invest in Massachusetts itself; we should keep this frame of reference in mind.

Take this with a biiiiig grain of salt: Suffolk is showing Markey with a 52-35 lead over Gomez. Not sure what to make of that, since PPP just showed Ed up by 4.

Maybe it means that polls don’t mean much between two candidates that haven’t been thoroughly introduced to the general public yet – particularly Gomez. Or perhaps it reflects the difference in enthusiasm and unity between the Dems and GOP at this point.

In any event, better to be up than down. Now we gotta do the grunt work – as does Ed.

The Massachusetts Democrat introduced a bill Tuesday which would let students pay the same interest rate on their government loans as banks.

Student loan interest rates are set to jump from 3.4 to 6.8 percent in July. Warren said banks can borrow from the Federal Reserve at an interest rate of less than 1 percent.

The degree to which our political culture, business culture, and educational culture has abandoned young adults is just obscene. Banks know they’re an easy mark. Politicians have left them with austerity budgets and an austerity economy.

Colleges jack up prices, leveraging the dream that an – their extra-premium education – is worth any cost; and use their financial aid to attract the wealthy rather than the best qualified:

U.S. colleges such as Boston University are using financial aid to lure rich students while shortchanging the poor, forcing those most in need to take on heavy debt, a report found.

…

The research analyzing U.S. Education Department data for the 2010-2011 school year undercuts the claims of many wealthy colleges that financial-aid practices make their institutions affordable, said Stephen Burd, the report’s author. He singled out schools — including Boston University and George Washington University — that appear especially pricey for poor families.

Thanks to our new Senator for starting to chip away at this corrupt edifice of student finance.

We did, after all, manage to bury Lee Harvey Oswald. Had Timothy McVeigh not been cremated, we’d have buried him too. This fiasco makes our so-called leaders look inept and ridiculous.

So we have protestors saying that the body should be dragged around for dogs to eat, as if we were in Mogadishu or Falluja. There’s a public health prescription for you.

Sorry, Governor, but yeah it is your job to do something with a dead body that no one wants. And the washing of hands by you, Cambridge City Manager Healey, Ed Markey and everyone else is not punishment for the dead bomber. It’s punishing the people who have tried to do the right thing: Funeral director Peter Stefan and Uncle Ruslan.

None of this not-my-problem attitude is going to bring back the dead victims, or punish the perpetrators. It’s not going to help a single bombing victim.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev is dead. Bury the body. Honor the dead and help the living. Step up and stop acting like children.

Good ideas and thoughts here from WBUR.

Back a few months ago, the Markey campaign swore up and down that it would be a grassroots, field-level, person-to-person effort on the model of the Obama, Patrick, and Warren campaigns. So this weekend leading up to Tuesday is the time where that effort comes to fruition: GOTV time.

I just talked with Carl Nilsson, field director for the Markey campaign. They’ve targeted 500,000 voters, people whom they’ve contacted multiple times. (For a sense of scale: The 2009 special Democratic primary brought out some 660,000 voters total, split between four candidates.) Now that those voters have been identified, the Get Out The Vote operation will consist of making sure people get to the polls — door-knocking, having conversations about polling hours and locations; leaving door-hangers with that info.

I asked about the local strengths of the organization: Some places (Boston, Cambridge, certain places in MA-05) were naturally going to be stronger than others, but was there one place he looked to as a bellwether, as a great “get” for the campaign? He said (as I suspected) — Lowell. He was impressed by the size and strength of the organization; and he claims that Markey’s progressive message on health care, climate (and its effect on jobs and innovation), and gun control were resonating there.

The current Markey organization consists of many folks who are veterans of the previous grassroots-oriented campaigns: Regional field directors Gabe Frumkin, Mark O’Halloran for central MA, Christina Pacheco for MA-09 all worked for the Warren campaign; Chelsie Oulette (FD for MA-3) worked for Obama and Patrick; and Taryn Hallweaver (name??), (FD, MA-06) worked for Obama. Along with campaign veterans Amaad Rivera of Latino Vote for Markey and Lydia Vega, the Coordinator for Latino and New Americans Vote, these are the folks who will be driving this train home.

It’s time to bring this one home. Markey’s a great progressive who’s been getting it done, actively, for 36 years

What can we do now? Knock and call. Sign up here.

Every day, Heba Abolaban of Malden checks on her family in war-strafed Syria, where water, bread and electricity are in short supply …

But as they strolled down Commercial Street, an angry-faced man charged toward the petite woman, his hand balled into a fist. He punched her hard in the shoulder and screamed curses inches from her face. Then he pointed at her and walked away shouting.

“He said, ‘(Expletive) you. (Expletive) you Muslims, You are terrorists, you are the ones who made the Boston explosion,’” said Abolaban …

… “I was so afraid he might hurt my baby,” she said.via Malden woman attacked by man accusing Muslims of Marathon bombings – Metro – The Boston Globe.

My God, the woman is a doctor. She helps people for a living, every day.

And everyone should read Yvonne Abraham’s column about our Muslim neighbor’s freshly-renewed fears of bigoted, misplaced retaliation. I don’t think I’m going out on a limb by looking at the FBI’s pictures of the suspects, who appear plausibly “Middle Eastern”, and fearing anew for our neighbors.

Dear world: If you want to love Boston, love Boston’s Muslims. They are a part of the city, just as are our Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and non-religious. They are shocked and hurt and angry and resilient, just like every other sentient human being in the city.

We stand in support of our neighbors in Boston’s Muslim community. To the world, again, we accept your compassion. We don’t need religious bigotry perpetrated on our behalf.

To the world watching Boston now, we will accept your compassion. We seem to be have enough blood right now — though there is always reason to give; we have excellent medical staff taking care of the wounded. The wounded will need care, love, and assistance in the days, weeks, and years going forward.

What we don’t need is bloodlust; co-optation; score-settling; pointed speculation; and I-told-you-so. What happened yesterday is not a symbol-of-something, it is something. The folks who were hurt or rattled are not means to an end, they are the ends themselves.

I remember September 11th well. And I remember thinking at the time that it would be exploited by all kinds of bad-faith operators for their various gain. We know what came out of that. After a good start of heroism, sanity and equanimity in the immediate aftermath, our fear and thirst for revenge was exploited to unrelated ends.

Let us remain focused on our own healing, on supporting the well-being of the wounded among us, and on the simple finding and imprisonment of the culprit(s). Maybe we won’t “ever be the same”. But we should damn well try. To me, that is courage.

I find myself agreeing with John Cole:

The only thing we “need” to do is find the perpetrators, try them, convict them, and jail them for the rest of our lives as we go on with ours, and I have full faith that our collected government agencies can do this.

Next year there will be another Patriot’s Day. There will be another Boston Marathon. We will not give up, we won’t live in fear … and we won’t be used.

GOP US Senate candidate Michael Sullivan says he’d vote against gun background checks – Metro – The Boston Globe.

Republican US Senate candidate Michael J. Sullivan, who previously held the nation’s top post regulating firearms, said in a WFXT-TV (Channel 25) debate tonight that he would vote against the Senate’s current measure that aims to close the gun show loophole because there is no such exception.

… “Some guns are sold in gun shows, some are sold at flea markets. Some are private transactions,” Sullivan said. “Massachusetts requires a background check for every transaction.”

Many states, however, do not require background checks at gun shows, as Gomez pointed out.

You know, the funny thing is that on this and other issues like marriage, Sullivan seems to want to be able to take the wingnutty position that would satisfy the (miniscule) Tea Party GOP primary base. But he seems to have that little voice in his head … don’t do it, the general voters will never go for it. (That voice is right, Mike.)

So he ends up with these lawyerly contortions: He’s against background checks because Massachusetts already has them. (Aren’t you running for US Senator, Mike?) Super-against gay marriage but would vote against DOMA. Or something.

He’s confused. And confusing.

Happy 7th (and last) Birthday, Massachusetts Health Reform

… One of the most interesting studies is research by Courtemanche and Zapata, two economists (their 2012 paper is here (pdf), an update was published in 2013). They found that reform in Massachusetts led to significant improvements in self-assessed health, and objective health indicators. Improved health was comprehensive, encompassing physical and mental health, functional limitations, joint disorders, and body mass index. They found an increase in reports of “excellent” and “very good” health, and a corresponding decrease in reports of “good,” “fair,” and “poor” health. It was particularly promising finding that there was no substantial difference in short and longer-term trends. These improvements showed an especially strong effect upon minorities, those with low incomes, the near elderly, and women.

In other words, it seems to be a good thing to be able to see a doctor when you’re sick. Or for prevention, for that matter.

The post has links and links to all manner of findings regarding the law’s effect. The more of this info there is around, the better chance the federal law will have of surviving the lunatic GOP onslaught. It’s pretty good policy, and it’s helping people.

The old hub, spoke, and wheel system that shaped Boston development for half a century is dead. It used to be that the businesses nestled into the staid suburban office parks along Route 128 mattered at least as much as the ones filling up towers in Boston and Cambridge. That’s no longer true. The business and social life of the region increasingly revolves around the tightly packed urban core.

Beacon Hill chose this moment — when new companies, residents, and billions upon billions of dollars in private investment are flowing into the city — to cripple the transit system that makes it all possible.

Look, this is about jobs: Whether you can get to yours, and how many there will be. McMorrow focuses on the importance of the urban core, but of course that’s the engine for the regional economy as well.

Furthermore, infrastructure investments create jobs. We just had a jobs report of a lackluster 88,000 jobs created. While having a lower unemployment rate than average, Massachusetts has not been lighting the world on fire in job creation, for a number of reasons. To restore and improve our infrastructure is to restore and improve the economy.

And our legislature refuses to do it. Because they’re scared. They should be afraid of being satisfied with themselves.

Sustain the veto. Back to the drawing board. Get it right.

Back in 2004 (you know, when Olympics Guy was our Gov), the legislature created the Transportation Finance Commission, an independent agency to look at long-term transportation needs and costs. In 2007, they came out with a report of findings and set of recommendations. They didn’t mince words in the findings:

The Transportation Finance Commission reviewed the most recent actions and decisions of the transportation agencies, spending trends over the past 20 years, and plans for the next 20 years. In each and every instance, we chose to take a very conservative view to make sure we did not overstate the size of the problem. Nonetheless, we estimate that over the next 20 years, the cost just to maintain our transportation system exceeds the anticipated resources available by $15 billion to $19 billion. This does nothing to address necessary expansions or enhancements. Our findings paint a dire picture. Numerous decisions were made in the past that have led us to this juncture. But this report is not about pointing fingers or assigning blame. We need to grasp the enormity of the problem that we face, recognize that “business as usual” will not suffice, and work together to develop sustainable solutions for our transportation system.

In 2009, the D’Alessandro report on the condition of the MBTA was issued. It, too, did not mince words: “THE OUTLOOK IS BLEAK” was the title of the first section. The implementation of Forward Funding was a failure for a variety of reasons, including fuel prices, benefits, especially health care; sales tax revenue shortfalls; etc. And because of that the MBTA had been robbing its future to pay for its present — and then the future showed up.

And as our pal Jim Stergios at the Koch-funded Pioneer Institute reminded us (send back their checks, Jim), they made a big splash inveighing against endlessly deferring infrastructure maintenance a few years ago, using the iconic Longfellow Bridge as an example. Again, for a sense of scale, this is an important quote in the current context:

The MBTA, UMass, MassHighway, Department of Conservation and Recreation, and the County Sheriffs each have maintenance backlogs in excess of $1 billion apiece. Overall, the Commonwealth’s physical assets suffer from a maintenance backlog in the tens of billions of dollars.

Tens of billions. Not $500 million. We’re talking about different scales here, Consensus Reality vs. Legislative Leadership.

Anyway, read up and get all factual and stuff.

We did some reform. But highways don’t fix themselves. The MBTA can’t shovel itself out from under its debt and return to reliability and expand, all by itself.

And now we find that the legislature’s cowardice and uselessness may well be jeopardizing millions in federal money, to finish a project that’s already years overdue — putting the obligation to pay for it back on the state! Well that is some genius thinking.

Look, I don’t blame any legislator for being wary of a tax increase. But they should be afraid of people who drive roads and take the trains and buses to get to where they need to go. And they are crumbling. The MBTA should be a prize system. It’s not.

There’s a big difference between different kinds of spending. If you put off getting a new roof because you don’t feel like spending the money, that will cost you later when it leaks and rots the inside of the house. Yeah, you saved money. Until you didn’t. We’re on the rotting side of that story, right now.

When your train breaks down; when your suspension bottoms out; when you couldn’t get to work or to an appointment because of our congested, rusting transit system … you’ll know who to blame.

But being a non-corporate health care guy, Lynch has always been for single-payer Medicare For All, right? Well, he used to be. And then he wasn’t, as of 2009. To be or not to be ….

And remember the public option? The big check on corporate health insurance that actually had a chance at one point? In 2009, we were on Boston Common, literally shouting at the guy to help us out:

September 08, 2009

Stephen Lynch’s tough weekend

Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.), who took out nomination papers to run for Ted Kennedy’s vacant Senate seat, received a rude wake-up call to his Senate ambitions over the weekend.

At Sunday’s Boston Common rally for President Obama’s health care reform, Lynch was booed during his speech by the very same activists he’ll need to win over in the upcoming special election. A longtime advocate of labor interests, Lynch wasn’t even invited to the state’s leading labor breakfast this weekend because of his skepticism towards the proposed public option component of health insurance legislation.

via Stephen Lynch’s tough weekend – - POLITICO.com.

In 2009-2010, We needed all hands on deck. If Lynch had concerns about corporate health care, he should have gotten behind the public option, instead of pulling his Hamlet act, and giving bad-faith mischief-makers like Joe Lieberman cover for sinking the PO.

The Affordable Care Act was indeed a complicated and difficult balancing act, a major gut-check for Democrats, for what it means to be a Democrat.

And Steve Lynch puked on his shoes.

This guy shouldn’t be our nominee, and shouldn’t be a Senator.

Charlestown, Massachusetts – Rep. Ed Markey released the following statement today denouncing Tom Steyer’s involvement in the Massachusetts Senate special election:

“As I stated when I first learned about Tom Steyer’s demands on Monday, these kinds of tactics have no place in our political discourse and should be repudiated. Mr. Steyer should immediately withdraw his threats and ultimatum, and stay out of this Senate race. This campaign should be about the people of this state, and I remain committed to giving Massachusetts voters a debate about the issues they care about most”

In case you hadn’t heard, California billionaire-turned-climate activist Tom Steyer had threatened to run attacks on Lynch if he didn’t renounce his support for the Keystone XL pipeline. Lynch responded in an op-ed today, turning the discussion (somewhat properly, I think) to Citizens United.

I appreciate Steyer’s concern, and think Lynch is dead wrong on Keystone; but this clearly violates the spirit of the People’s Pledge to keep outside interests out of the primary. The potential for backlash is considerable, and deserved. Now, if the Rove/Koch/Adelson/Friess carnival shows up in the general, I wouldn’t want to unilaterally disarm, and maybe Steyer could make himself useful, even though an airwave battle of billionaires would be distasteful, and ultimately the opposite of what we need.

Anyway, good on Markey for disavowing the attacks. Steyer should think better of the whole thing, and be more constructive and targeted in his actions.

Anyway, if you need to learn more about Ed or how to get involved in the campaign, it’s up, it’s there.

Look, we have fun at this site and we kick a lot of ideas around and welcome a variety of viewpoints and advocacy of candidates. And we’ll always be that way.

But I also know that the vast majority of our readership is pretty darned progressive. And if you didn’t know it already: Ed’s your guy. He’s been that guy for a long time. And I would caution against taking Steve Lynch or the GOP folks for granted — his election isn’t a foregone conclusion by any stretch. And he deserves it — not because he’s next in line, but because he’s been earning it.

… I liked what our massmarrier said in his impressions of a Markey campaign stop (my emphasis):

OK, kiddies, Ed Markey can do this. He can be senatorial, certainly while campaigning, and that’s sine qua non for this run to replace US Sen. John Kerry.

I wasn’t sure. His typical wonky pronouncements as US Rep. can be dour and dry, from the video clips. Maybe it was the venue (JP Licks) or the audience (lefties all), but he was dynamic, passionate and funny. He delivered a simultaneously detailed and focused stump speech that owned the packed half of the joint.

Yeah, he can do this.

http://massmarrier.blogspot.com/2013/02/markey-weaves-beautiful-tapestry.html

Former On Point producer – turned climate activist Wen Stephenson lays out the case in his excellently provocative article “The New Abolitionists” in this week’s Phoenix:

It seems fairly obvious that the reason we don’t hear politicians, or the “serious” people in our media, talking (at least in public) about this situation — the true gravity of it — is that to grapple with this in any real way, to propose anything that would actually begin to address it with the necessary urgency at the national and global level, would simply sound too extreme, if not outright crazy. Leave fossil fuels in the ground? You must be joking. Why, that would mean canceling the Keystone pipeline! It would mean putting Alberta’s tar sands, the second largest pool of carbon on the planet, off limits! Who are you kidding? Be serious! (Nevermind that a group of  18 top climate scientists signed a letter to Obama last month urging him to reject the pipeline to demonstrate the “seriousness of his climate convictions.”)

This is the reality — or the surreality — of the historical moment in which we find ourselves. At this late hour in the climate crisis, with the clock ticking down on civilization, to be serious about climate change — based, mind you, on what science and not ideology prescribes — is to be radical.

Read more

[Or, as the apocryphal anecdote goes, when Ralph Waldo Emerson visited Thoreau in jail, he said, "What are you doing in there?" And Thoreau replied, "What are you doing out there?"]

Chris Hayes sees hope is the changing, er, political climate: “After several years of painful, bewildering, infuriating exile, climate policy is back on the agenda. Thank god.” From his lips to God’s ears.

I don’t know how that happens in this Congress, with these Republicans and fossil-fuel Democrats; but surely it will happen eventually, simply because it must. It will cost too much not to change, not to transition off of dirty energy and onto clean energy. The City of Boston’s mitigation plans will cost money. “Sea level rise on the East Coast is three to four times faster than globally”, and the flooding of the coastlines is now costing money and misery. Coral Davenport’s terrific long read in the National Journal sets out the many, varied, and massive costs,

So if we’re not in DC getting arrested today, what can we do here?

Support Ed Markey. A lot. This is obvious. He has been the point person on climate in the House of Representatives. He understands the reality of what we’re up against — although, as Stephenson points out, even he is handcuffed in what he can realistically propose, because frankly climate had so little support from the grassroots as a present and motivating issue. That simply must change. And he has to get elected because of his climate leadership, not simply because he’s next in line, or an otherwise reliable progressive. There’s a reason, a necessity, for his candidacy.

Write a letter in support of strong climate action to President Obama, Elizabeth Warren, US Reps, and local news outlets. Elevate the game. If you’d like something specific to support, go with Barbara Boxer’s and Bernie Sanders’ carbon-tax bill, which puts the proceeds towards renewables. Or if you prefer, a carbon tax whose proceeds are refunded directly to the public, from Citizens Climate Lobby.

Regardless of approach, the political and media systems need to feel the exercise of power, from those unwilling to accept a terrible fate without a fight. That’s what folks are doing today in DC.

During last week’s snowstorm he poked fun at his legislative colleagues by tweeting the threadbare joke that any winter storm disproves the theory of global warming:

I’m not making this up: just received word from the House Committee on Global Warming that Wednesday’s meeting postponed due to snow storm.

What a riot he is. When the former occupant of his House seat, now-Senator and fellow Republican Richard Ross tweeted back, hinting that Winslow might want to make it clear that he was only joking, he grudgingly complied — “A joke gents.”  But then he quickly rejoined the global warming sceptics by reciting their faux-modest epistemological confession:

Although I do not have enough information to know whether the reported warming is a result of natural causes, manmade causes, or both.

Someone who “doesn’t have enough information”, or who “isn’t smart enough”, a la Charlie Baker, or “too busy”, a la Chris Christie, is someone who just doesn’t want to think about it. It’s not even global warming denial … it’s denial of denial — trying to get out of having to grapple at all with a very difficult and complex issue. If Winslow is who he says he is — a bipartisan problem-solver — he should be bold and show us something. That would be genuinely welcome in this Senate race. I would love to have him and Markey fight it out over who can best effect change in Congress over climate.

—

RGGI, our regional cap-and-trade system, is getting stronger (press release):

RGGI States Propose Lowering Regional CO2 Emissions Cap 45%, Implementing a More Flexible Cost-Control Mechanism

… Improvements include: A reduction of the 2014 regional CO2 budget, “RGGI cap”, from 165 million to 91 million tons – a reduction of 45 percent. The cap would decline 2.5 percent each year from 2015 to 2020.

… Analyses indicate that today’s proposed changes would:

• Reduce projected 2020 power sector CO2 pollution more than 45 percent below 2005 levels.
• Preserve the significant reductions that have already occurred in power sector CO2 emissions, and drive further reductions. The new cap is projected to generate approximately 80 – 90 million tons of cumulative emission reductions by 2020, when compared to the current RGGI program, and annual emissions in 2020 are projected to be approximately 14 – 20 million tons lower than they would be otherwise.
• Result in a modest increase in allowance prices, with allowances expected to be priced at approximately $4 ($2010) per allowance in 2014 and rising to approximately $10 ($2010) per allowance in 2020.
• Have minimal net impact to consumer’s electricity bills. Overall, the average electricity bill for residential, commercial and industrial customers is projected to increase by less than 1 percent.
• Generate an additional $2.2 billion ($2010) for reinvestment. These investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy save consumers money, create jobs and enhance energy security, and drive further emission reductions.

Saving money, helping the economy, saving CO2 … what’s not to like? NJ used to be part of RGGI until Chris Christie pulled them out, calling it a “gimmick”. Christie, whose state has 9.6% unemployment and just got smashed by a big, warming-fueled storm, should be glad to have such “gimmicks.” He doesn’t have time for this? Someone get this man a ladder so he can climb down.

Ed Markey Gets a Powerful Endorsement From Hardball’s Chris Matthews – YouTube.

From a few years ago, when Lynch faced a primary challenge (read the whole thing):

Lynch: Moslems should move proposed Manhattan center out of respect for ‘us’ | Universal Hub.

D’Alessandro said he supported the rights of a Moslem group to build a cultural center two blocks from Ground Zero: “We have a constitutionally protected right to practice our faith as we see fit, and you know, those rights, those core values mean the most when it’s uncomfortable for us to adhere to them,” he said.

Lynch disagreed: “Respect and tolerance lives on a two-way street. I know a lot of those families who lost loved ones that day, I know a lot of firefighters who, their families, who perished that day and I just think it would be a huge win for the Imam to move that mosque and I would hope they would do that as a symbol for us and our fallen.”

“Us”? “Our fallen”? So if you’re Muslim, then you’re not one of “us”?

I have nothing but contempt for that kind of argument, for that kind of thinking, that kind of stereotyping, ignorance, tribalism and bigotry. I don’t know who it appeals to, and I don’t care.

Enough.

UPDATE (by David): You can watch the video of the WGBH debate in which Lynch made the comments in question here – the exchange over the Manhattan mosque starts about 15 minutes in. Actually, the whole thing is worth watching to hear Lynch talk at length about his vote on health care, among other things.

Well, we’ll see.

And the program has been good for the economy. And why not? The local insulation contractors benefit, obviously; and then the money you’re not spending on oil, gas, or electricity goes into your pocket. Better to take the family out to dinner, bringing that money into the local economy, than to have it go up the chimney.

Well, apparently there are plans to weaken the program — or at least to set goals lower than they could be:

Northeast Faces Stark Choice on Climate Pollution – NYTimes.com.

But the future effectiveness of this market-based cap-and-trade system, the first but not the only one of its kind in the nation, is now in question. The nine states in the initiative are preparing to reset the emissions cap — or the total amount of carbon dioxide that power plants can emit — and some of the proposals would allow power plants to increase the amount of carbon dioxide they dump into the atmosphere.

Cap-and-trade programs are designed to lower emissions gradually by reducing the cap and the allowances that are available. Polluters get flexibility in cutting emissions by being able to trade allowances among themselves. The idea is to achieve the reductions at the lowest cost through market forces rather than through direct regulation.

But of the four cap-adjustment proposals under consideration, three would reset the cap above current emissions and allow pollution to rise through 2020. Only a fourth option would continue to drive down pollution by resetting the cap at 91 million tons, the current emissions level, and then reducing it by another 2.5 percent a year through 2020.

Part of this is because of the low price of natural gas — the good news side of the revolution, with the manifest ugliness of fracking being the bad side.

In any event, now is absolutely not the time to back off on carbon pollution, which is a direct threat to … well, everyone on the planet, but certainly those of us who live near the ocean and in the line of hurricanes.

Gov. Patrick needs to lead, loudly and firmly, on strengthening RGGI. Hell, get Christie involved — he might take a call these days. This is a success story. Let’s build on it.

Tuesday – January 29, 2013 at 7:00 PM

Lowell Volunteer Meeting for Ed Markey Senate Campaign

Pollard Memorial Library

RSVP: lowellformarkey@gmail.com

Maybe we are just more ‘proactive’ than most cities? My point, the pieces are moving.

From the FB event page:

Join Dick Howe & Marie Sweeney to discuss Ed Markey (his background and stance on the issues) and to learn the timeline for the special election to fill the US Senate seat now held by John Kerry. Everyone is invited. No commitments, no pressure, just come, be informed and have an enjoyable evening.

Where Kerry was most passionate was on the issue of climate change, calling it a “life-threatening issue.”

“The solution to climate change is energy policy,” he said. “You want to do business and do it well in America, we got to get into the energy race.” He cited Massachusetts, where alternative energy is “growing faster than any other sector. . . . This is a job creator.”

“I will be a passionate advocate for this,” he added, “not based on ideology but facts.”

One has to notice even the incremental changes in tone in Washington. As one’s justifications change for maintaining a particular position, the position subtly changes almost as a result. One senses rather less discussion on the right challenging the basic reality of climate change; but one still hears that addressing climate domestically might give an advantage to China and India, if they do not also restrict emissions.

Well, that may be changing on China’s end. Maybe. Moving these countries and others along the road — and being willing to make commitments on the US’s behalf — will be Kerry’s job. If he can get cooperation from China and India, will the US Congress follow?

Only if there is constant pressure, rhetorical and political — from the top, in the White House — and from the electorates, as people understand and communicate their will for self-protection and self-preservation in the face of a threat.

What we still have not seen from Markey is a.) an actual website, or b.) an apparent plan to involve the grassroots in an actual campaign. In fairness, this may be because we don’t know if we even have c.) a Republican candidate.

I’ve heard Twitter rumors that Brown is putting the band back together and moving into its old campaign office digs. Maybe. But just as a matter of logistics, probability of success, and stamina, Scott Brown’s got good reason to sit this one out. Bro’s gotta be tired. He can go Gunning for Rovernor in a year if he likes, with possibly better chances.Gov. Patrick has indeed given the GOP A Thing to Run Against, by actually confronting our challenges on transportation and education.

And beyond Brown … how’s that GOP bench? My goodness, can you even name any potential candidates that haven’t already washed themselves up? Bielat? Anyone up for Kerry Healey? Sad stuff.

Markey’s the best guy for the seat and I support him 100%. But  I will find it more than a little strange if Markey just floats on to a more-or-less permanent Senate seat without so much as a primary or general election challenge.

Speaker of the House Robert DeLeo

      (Winthrop, Revere)

·      State Senator Katherine Clark

            (Malden, Melrose, Reading, Stoneham, Wakefield, Winchester)

·      State Senator Karen Spilka

            (Ashland, Framingham, Franklin, Holliston, Hopkinton, Medway, Natick)

·      State Senator Sal DiDomenico

      (Everett, Chelsea, Charlestown, Allston-Brighton, Cambridge, Revere, Saugus, Somerville

·      State Senator Will Brownsberger

      (Boston, Brighton, Watertown, Belmont, Allston)

·      State Senator Pat Jehlen

      (Medford, Somerville, Winchester, Cambridge)

·      State Senator Mike Barrett

            (Bedford, Carlisle, Chelmsford, Concord, Lincoln, Waltham, Weston, Lexington, Sudbury)

·      State Senator Ken Donnelly

            (Arlington, Billerica, Burlington, Lexington, Woburn)

·      State Senator Anthony Petruccelli

            (East Boston, Revere, Winthrop, Cambridge)

·      Malden Mayor Gary Christenson

·      Medford Mayor Mike McGlynn

·      Woburn Mayor Scott Galvin

·      Melrose Mayor Rob Dolan

·      Revere Mayor Dan Rizzo

·      State Representative David Linsky

            (Natick, Millis, Sherborn)

·      State Representative Tom Stanley

            (Lincoln, Waltham)

·      State Representative Paul Brodeur

            (Melrose, Wakefield, Malden)

·      State Representative John Lawn

            (Newton, Waltham, Watertown)

·      State Representative Paul Donato

            (Medford, Malden)

·      State Representative Sean Garballey

            (Arlington, Medford)

·      State Representative Jonathan Hecht

            (Watertown, Cambridge)

·      State Representative Tom Conroy

            (Marlborough, Sudbury, Framingham, Wayland)

·      State Representative Jay Kaufman

            (Lexington, Woburn)

·      State Representative Jason Lewis

            (Stoneham, Winchester)

·      State Representative Tom Sannicandro

            (Ashland, Framingham)

·      State Representative Carl Sciortino

            (Medford, Somerville)

·      State Representative Jim Dwyer

            (Woburn, Reading)

·      State Representative Chris Walsh

            (Framingham)

·      State Representative Carolyn Dykema

            (Holliston, Hopkinton, Medway, Southborough, Westborough)

·      State Representative Marjorie Decker

            (Cambridge)

·      State Representative Dave Rogers

            (Arlington, Belmont, Cambridge)

When Inskeep asks him if he still thinks the health law is a form of socialism, as he’s said before, [Whole Foods CEO] Mackey responds:

“Technically speaking, it’s more like fascism. Socialism is where the government owns the means of production. In fascism, the government doesn’t own the means of production, but they do control it — and that’s what’s happening with our health care programs and these reforms.”

via Whole Foods Founder John Mackey On Fascism And ‘Conscious Capitalism’ : The Salt : NPR.

[To be, ahem, scrupulously fair, Mackey has walked back his use of the word "fascism." I don't think that does him much good.]

Amazingly, Inskeep never pressed Mackey on how depriving his workers of certain benefits means they have to pay more out of pocket. Precisely what benefits does he not want to pay for, that the PPACA requires? Maternity and newborn? Contraception? Prescription drugs? Pediatric care?

Brings up a really tricky point: Do you boycott and punish a corporation which is probably mostly not made of insufferable idiots –certainly not the folks who stock the shelves and cash you out — because their CEO is a flamingly offensive douchebag? Do you make their place of employment less viable because their Big Boss doesn’t want to pay them good health benefits?

Just let it be said that Mr. Mackey continues to be very bad publicity for his chain. You could be forgiven for walking past and going to another supermarket.

• People need to get places. And so does stuff. So we have to have good, more and better ways to get people and stuff to the places they’re supposed to get to. This makes life better.
• It’s good to get kids learning things at a pretty young age; the younger the better. This makes those kids smarter and more capable even as they grow up into adults. This makes life better.

Or if you’re the Governor, you say it like this:

Opportunity is too important to leave to chance. Opportunity requires growth. And growth requires investment. It’s just as true of government as in any business. The economy is not like the weather; it is not some natural force that is beyond our control, something where we have to wait for others to predict or explain. What we choose to do, and not to do, shapes our future. Indeed, as one friend of mine likes to say, “The future belongs to those who prepare for it.”

That is why we invest in education, in innovation and in infrastructure.

We invest in education because well-prepared young minds and mid-career talent is our global calling card and our economic edge.

We invest in innovation because, with a workforce like ours, enabling and encouraging new ideas is the best way to take advantage of the knowledge explosion happening in the world economy today.

We invest in infrastructure because rebuilding our roads, rails, bridges, expanding broadband to every community, building new classrooms and labs and more affordable housing gives private initiative and personal ambition the platform for growth.

Education, innovation, infrastructure. It’s a strategy proven through history. And it’s working for us today.

The headlines everywhere – including here – are going to shriek about Gov. Patrick’s tax plan. Yes, when you propose getting something that’s valuable, you have to pay for it somehow. That tax money is going to pay for something of value. We have been free-lunching our transportation and education priorities for a long time. We have been skating on the investments that past generations made for our present — for us.

Tax money pays for stuff. It can be good stuff or bad stuff; useful or useless; effective or ineffective. Keep what it buys in the forefront of the conversation, and we’ll make better decisions both on the revenue and the spending sides. The revenue has to be aimed at things we actually want; the projects upon which it is spent need to be properly vetted, tightly overseen, and transparent. We have to get our money’s worth. If the public has confidence it will actually get the value promised for the money invested, it will accept new revenues.

@MikeCapuano: Thank you for all your good wishes. Though I won’t enter the US Sen. race, I look forward to continuing to fight for the Citizens of the MA

Not too surprising. The only sitting Congressman left potentially facing Markey is Steve Lynch. The Herald got a little scooplet with the head of IBEW Local 103 Mike Monahan calling Markey a “weak candidate”, which sounds like he wants Lynch. Funny, Monahan says he’ll join up with Markey if Tom Menino really really wants him to, which sounds like an invitation to Mr. Mayor.to do exactly that.

Lynch would not defeat Markey. It’s a progressive-leaning primary; Lynch is anti-abortion. and did such a Clown-shoe Hamlet act over health care that he pretty much gave up any goodwill most Dem primary voters would have for him.

Anyone else? Rabbi Pesner?

Medford, MA – Rep. Ed Markey (D-Malden) today announced that powerhouse leader Sarah Benzing will be managing his campaign for the U.S. Senate. Benzing managed the winning 2012 Sherrod Brown for Senate campaign in the tough battleground state of Ohio. She joins Elizabeth Warren for Senate campaign finance veterans Colleen Coffey and Michael Pratt on the Markey campaign.

“Sarah is the best choice to lead this campaign of big issues and ideas,” said Rep. Markey. “Her proven track-record managing grassroots campaigns shows she has the leadership, know-how and passion to lead this campaign to victory. I am excited to have Sarah join us as campaign manager.”

Now, you can’t argue with results; Sherrod Brown (a fine progressive) won his race easily, though against a GOP candidate widely regarded as not the sharpest tool in the shed. But Ohio is indeed a tough, competitive state, and one would at least figure this shows that Markey is preparing for a competitive race here.

Here’s a 2009 fluffy profile in The Hill of Benzing. Cute.

There was a write-up about Coffey and Pratt in the Globe this morning. Obviously they were part of the operation that raised a lot of money, though I would chalk most of that up to Warren’s nationwide profile.

Still, this is something. What is still missing from the picture is a field structure and significant outreach to grassroots, which is what made the Patrick and Warren campaigns so powerful — and what made the candidates resilient to the inevitable dings and dents of a tough campaign.

The governor also continued to use Hurricane Sandy as a reason to talk about global warming.

“Climate change is real,” he said. “It is denial to say each of these situations is a once-in-a-lifetime. There is a 100-year flood every two years now. It is inarguable that the sea is warmer and there is a changing weather pattern, and the time to act is now.”

Among his proposals were a bailout fund for homeowners who want to move out of flood-prone regions, and aid for building homes that can withstand floods — ideas that are contingent on how much federal aid comes through. He also called for measures to better protect subways, public utilities, the fuel delivery system and New York Harbor.

via Cuomo Calls for State to Return to Progressive Ideals – NYTimes.com.

We should look at Sandy and say “There but for the grace of God go I.” Actually, we should understand that it’s coming our way sooner or later.

We need to hear from our Governor how we’re going to prepare for coming disasters, and to have him use the bully pulpit — loudly and frequently — to speak out about climate, with the same urgency as he does about issues of justice and compassion.

Kerry Emanuel is a climatologist at MIT, and a Republican. He knows what’s going on, and he’s been trying to tell the GOP to wake up to reality. If we’re honest, we know that Democrats need to hear that message too.

It’s Time to Find Common Ground — Speed-Drawing Video on Bipartisan Solutions to Climate Change – YouTube.

Barack Obama ‘seriously considering’ hosting climate summit | Environment | guardian.co.uk.

Obama may intervene directly on climate change by hosting a summit at the White House early in his second term, environmental groups say.

They say the White House has given encouraging signals to a proposal for Obama to use the broad-based and bipartisan summit to launch a national climate action strategy.

And it’s because of, well, the obvious: Sandy, drought — but also because of continuous political pressure by some of our great climate heroes:

Democrats in Congress are also moving more forcefully to keep climate change on the public radar. Barbara Boxer, who chairs the Senate environment and public works committee, said this month she was reviving efforts to pass climate change legislation, focused on strengthening coastal communities against future superstorms.

“People are coming up to me. They really want to get into this. I think Sandy changed a lot of minds,” Boxer told reporters, announcing the launch of a climate change caucus to push for legislation. “I think you’re going to see a lot of bills on climate change,” she said.

Meanwhile, Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, committed to delivering weekly speeches on climate change from the Senate floor …

This would be most welcome. The deniers are simply no longer relevant to the factual discussion — even in the public at large. The most important thing now is a continuous, active full-court press by those folks who have been leaders on this issue. We’ve got to a.) activate our friends, b.) persuade the persuadables, and c.) neutralize (not destroy) the opposition.

We will win … not in time to avoid great suffering, but hopefully in time to stave off the worst.

On the other hand, within the last 6+ years in Massachusetts, we’ve elected a couple of outsiders — Deval Patrick and Elizabeth Warren — people with excellent professional qualifications but who were not part of a pre-existing power structure — who were most definitely not next in line.

And now we’re hearing that Donald Berwick wants to get in the governor’s race? Don Berwick is the Elizabeth Warren of health care: One of the country’s foremost experts on health care costs, he was nominated to run Medicare, was blocked by a GOP Senate minority, and recess-appointed by President Obama. Berwick’s ordeal was proof-positive that the GOP cares a lot more about political demagoguery and clumsy opportunism than actually controlling entitlement spending – which is what Berwick would have tried to do.

And now he’s trying to find a way back into public life:

Newton’s Donald Berwick considering a 2014 run for governor as Democrat – Newton, Massachusetts – Newton TAB

“I had this experience in Washington running CMS and got both impressed and saw dysfunction and what can go wrong in government,” Berwick said. As a pediatrician, Berwick said, he cares “deeply” about kids and the future of the state’s youth and believes the state “can do tremendous things to help in that area.”

“I think Massachusetts is already in the lead. It’s already doing good things and the country badly needs a state to surge ahead and show leadership,” Berwick said.

Well THAT would be interesting — an absolute platinum-standard wonk running for top office. Look, Charlie Baker’s a decently smart guy and all (not like you could tell that from his gov run), but at heart he’s an executive who bleeds green. Berwick’s the real deal, an actual empiricist. (Hey Don, what do you say about climate?)

… And as if that weren’t enough, David Bernstein finds the Rabbi Jonah Pesner thinking of jumping into the Senate race:

Pesner, formerly a congregational rabbi at Temple Israel, is senior vice president of the national Union of Reform Judaism, and founding chair of JOIN for Justice. He has also served in Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO) leadership, and co-chaired its campaign health care reform, leading to the2006 state law.

His involvement with GBIO “changed everything,” Pesner says. “It was all grassroots campaigning, joining hands with our congregations, to stand with them on behalf of our shared values. It was religion at its best.”

Frank’s frank Senate declaration rankles Mass. political world – Metro – The Boston Globe.

A former colleague, Representative Edward J. Markey, was rankled by the prospect, friends say, in part because of the inevitable poll that would gauge Frank’s popularity as senator. A high approval rating for Frank could overshadow Markey’s candidacy in the special election campaign that would be needed to fill the seat permanently.

In a statement today, Markey disputed feeling any discomfort over a Frank appointment, labeling the suggestion “completely false.”

… Frank, a Newton Democrat, declared again Friday that he would “absolutely not” be a candidate in the special election, even if Patrick awarded him the job on an interim basis. But he also was similarly Shermanesque about his desire to leave Congress, an opinion he has since changed.

Well … these cats have been in DC together for a long time. If there were no tension whatsoever I’d be shocked. And this is Mr. Cuddles himself Barney Frank we’re talking about.

Johnson raises the idea that — contrary to Frank’s indications — Frank would use his appointment to run for the seat himself. That would be lame. As I’ve said, this is Ed Markey’s moment in history. He’s the guy we need long term, for the remainder of Kerry’s term and for at least another.

I doubt Frank would go back on his word. And I doubt that there would be much support in the party for him continuing on, even if he did.

Patrick has made transportation a top priority this year, and the Legislature has developed a consensus that something needs to be done to address an estimated shortfall of about $1 billion a year to maintain the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, regional bus systems, and state highways. Murray, in her speech, plans to cite significant needs, including a $2.2 trillion (??? typo?) backlog of infrastructure projects at the MBTA.

But she does not specifically endorse a tax increase. Instead, she notes that the Legislature had previously demanded “reform before revenue,” which sparked a 2009 overhaul that eliminated the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority. She said that change, plus an increase in the sales tax that staved off toll hikes and MBTA fare increases, helped the state “overcome some of its most immediate problems” with its transportation system.

“It is now possible to envision a better future for the Department of Transportation, where it was not before,” she plans to say.

We also heard old friend Jim Aloisi on WBUR this morning, saying that transportation revenue should the be source of transport funding; and rather unhelpfully talking up his old tracker plan whereby motorists would be taxed per mile driven. Not gonna happen.

The better way to fund this stabilization and improvement would be through the income tax. The state’s transportation infrastructure is about as universal a public good as it gets; it’s a necessity for everyone, and everyone benefits from its improvement. The income tax is a perfectly proper place to go for those funds.

I would also support an increase in the gas tax, though naturally there’s resistance. For one, anything that discourages driving big, inefficient, polluting vehicles is to the good. But even a 10-cent tax means that a 15-gallon fill-up would cost an extra $1.50 — not much — with respect, even for those who live in rural areas. Compare that to the amount that T fares have risen over the last few years, and it’s really not much. T riders are people who are not sitting in traffic, and creating much less pollution and CO2. (This is true, even though Aloisi said it.)

You have to make choices. The wrong choice is to let things wither on the vine, as we’ve been doing.

“While I began last week to formally step out of politics, and it’s very important that I respect the apolitical nature of the post I hope to soon occupy, as Massachusetts’ senior senator today and as a colleague of Ed Markey’s for 28 years, I’m excited to learn of and support his decision to run for the United States Senate,” Kerry said in a statement. ”Ed’s one of the most experienced and capable legislators in the entire Congress and it would be an almost unprecedented occasion for such an accomplished legislator to join the Senate able to hit the ground running on every issue of importance to Massachusetts.”

Now, on one hand, I’m not sure how I feel about this. A rush to coalesce behind a single candidate creates heavy expectations for that person; whereas a primary battle can help them sharpen their message and endure the inevitable slings and arrows of a tough general campaign. I’m not sure a coronation is a good thing.

On the other hand, I’m pleased that the establishment seems to agree with my sense that Markey is the best person for the job. Let’s just hope he stays sharp, and stays hungry.

“I have decided to run for the US Senate because this fight is too important,” Markey said in a statement to the Globe. “There is so much at stake.”

… [In] a frisky announcement statement, Markey signaled he is prepared for a hard-swinging campaign for US Senate, defending several traditional liberal positions.

“With Senator Kerry’s departure, Massachusetts voters will decide once again whether we want a Senator who will fight for all our families or one who supports a Republican agenda that benefits only the powerful and well-connected,” Markey said. “I refuse to allow the Tea Party-dominated Republican Party to lead us off the fiscal cliff and into recession. I won’t allow the [National Rifle Association] to obstruct an assault weapons ban yet again. I will not sit back and allow oil and coal industry lobbyists to thwart our clean energy future or extremists to restrict women’s rights and health care.”

I think Markey’s ready to take the fight to Scott Brown, if that’s necessary. He’s been a fighter on climate and consumer issues for ages. The big question is whether he can put together and leverage a grassroots door-knocking operation statewide a la Liz and Deval.

As I’ve said, I’m a supporter. I don’t usually make early endorsements, since the primary process can clarify the strengths and weaknesses of a candidate. But I have a strong sense that like Elizabeth Warren vis a vis inequality and financial reform, Markey is a guy whose issue strengths have come to the fore now, whose moment has arrived.

I like McGovern a ton. Ben Downing too. Capuano’s OK; Lynch much less so. Roller-derby: GO.

… Schatz gave one public policy priority: “For me personally, I believe global climate change is real, and it is the most urgent challenge of our generation.”

And we in MA could have a big hand in rolling momentum forward: Climate hero John Kerry becomes Secretary of State, likely elevating the status of global warming as a national priority.

And then we could elect climate hero Ed Markey to fill his seat.

This needs to happen. Seize the future. Thanks from MA all the way out to Honolulu to Gov. Abercrombie for his appointment.

A WBUR poll of 500 registered voters (PDFs – topline, crosstabs) finds U.S. Sen. Scott Brown is in a strong position should there be a special election to fill U.S. Sen. John Kerry’s seat.

Kerry is believed to be President Obama’s choice to replace Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The poll, conducted by the MassINC Polling Group on Monday and Tuesday, finds voters view Brown favorably, despite the fact that in November they chose to elect Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren in his stead. Fifty-eight percent of those polled say they have a favorable view of Brown, compared with 28 percent who view him unfavorably. Rounded off, 12 percent say they are undecided, and 1 percent say they have never heard of him.

Exactly. Warren got elected because there was unprecedented grassroots interest from across the country, much less our state; and because she was the right person at the right time with the right message.

But unfortunately, for all that we may hope that Brown burned through some of his good will and nice-guy image with the goofy, overplayed “as you can see” attack lines … that may not be the case. But I still attribute these big leads to name recognition: He is better known than the folks who have been in Congress for decades. He doubtless also still benefit from distance from the political establishment … for better or worse. If the election comes down to one of the Dem Congressfolk against Brown, there will definitely still be an insider/outsider, experienced-vs.-lightweight dynamic.

Brown is canny enough to try to get some of the “moderate” middle ground – eg. his recent flip-flop on assault weapons. Now, the same line of attack can be used against him that Warren invoked: Where have you been? Everyone on Team Dem has been on the right side of this for ages.

Long live the eternal zombie campaign of Scott Brown … you can never kill it.

Ernie brings up the option of Deval self-appointing. He would be the obvious next-in-line, but I just don’t think he’ll do that.  Aside from him … who are the luminaries that could run against and beat Scott Brown — again? You would want someone who’s well-known, that can engender loyalty and energy from the Dem base, and who is able to run strongly against Brown down the middle as well. And whose name doesn’t rhyme with Siddhartha Stokely.

Who is that? Is there another outsider lib to save our bacon a la Deval and Liz?

Is there any reason to believe catastrophic economic claims about controlling greenhouse gases? Well, no. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which has encompassed ten states (NJ was in and now out), is a cap-and-trade program that slowly limits carbon-dioxide emissions. I have little doubt that most folks in these states have very little idea that they’re under such a regime right now. It works. It cuts emissions. And it’s good for the economy, said a report from The Analysis Group last year.

• ƒƒ The regional economy gains more than $1.6 billion in economic value added (reflecting the difference between total revenues in the overall economy, less the cost to produce goods and services)
• Customers save nearly $1.1 billion on electricity bills, and an additional $174 million on natural gas and heating oil bills, for a total of $1.3 billion in savings over the next decade through installation of energy efficiency measures using funding from RGGI auction proceeds to date
• 16,000 jobs are created region wide
• Reduced demand for fossil fuels keeps more than $765 million in the local economy
• Power plant owners experience $1.6 billion in lower revenue over time, although overall had higher revenues than costs as a result of RGGI during the 2009-2011

I have personally benefitted from one such program: MassSave does free energy audits, changes out your incandescent light bulbs with CFLs for free, and gives generous subsidies for conservation work, like insulation. I’ve twice availed myself of their subsidies. My heating bills are lower, and the house is warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer. Quality of life = better. Cash flow = better. CO2 footprint = smaller.

MassSave is paid for partly out of proceeds from cap-and-trade. But there are other uses for cap-and-trade revenue:

Funds were also invested in other ways, all with positive economic outcomes, including worker training, community-based renewable energy projects, bill-payment assistance to low-income and other energy customers, land protection, and contributions to a state’s general fund to help close budget gaps.

Obviously, I think it would be best to keep that money flowing to conservation programs to max out the greenhouse gas benefit, which should be Object #1.

This is not killing us. In fact, RGGI is helping us, right now. On the other hand, the dead-weight of cleaning up after storms like Sandy is immense. So why not expand a program that’s actually good for the economy and for quality of life, which also cuts the risk of climate catastrophe? Any other states want these nice benefits we’re getting?

Rachel Maddow on Obama’s Re-election – YouTube.

The competition of democracy ought to result in the spiraling upwards of ideas, a competition to see who can out-do the other in confronting problems.

What we’ve had is that the Democrats trying to address health care, climate, our broken immigration system, etc., while Republicans deny that they are problems and tear down attempts to deal with them — or insist on ideology versus data. Problem is … reality always wins in the end.

If we had cooperation, credit would be shared. Both the Democrats and Republicans would have higher approval ratings. And the country would be better off.

• In a way … the Coakley debacle of 2010 was a blessing in disguise. I don’t say that lightly, because losing elections sucks, and it has consequences.

  But Elizabeth Warren’s victory is a really really big deal, nationally. She is someone who doesn’t just show up to Congress with a vote for Dem priorities, but as someone who is able to define those priorities. She has accurately diagnosed the central illness of American democracy, which is rule by the rich/for the rich. It’s her life’s work; she was recruited to run for Senate because of it; and to shine a light on our the rot of our plutocracy is her raison d’etre. I can’t think of any other victorious candidate in my lifetime who has so clearly framed the issues as such — even as it’s been so obvious for years.

  More than anyone we’ve had in years — maybe even Ted Kennedy — Warren is able to set the table for the Dems, and for the administration. And she can flip that table over if she wants, too. This will be fun to watch.

• Let’s face it: Nationally, the Republicans don’t want to win. They want to fight. That’s what gives them meaning and purpose. And they would prefer to go down fighting than win the winnable races. They could have a GOP Senate today that included Mike Castle, Dick Lugar, Olympia Snowe, and a handful of other moderates or bipartisan types. (You don’t have to be particularly moderate to be bipartisan: see Kennedy, Ted.)

  And as time goes by, the GOP cuts itself smaller and smaller slices of the demographic/ideological pie. It’s good for ratings of Fox, Rush, and their imitators. But it’s not governance: It’s a tantrum. At some point they may decide that they’d like to win those elections, but as long as their media infrastructure makes money feeding the hysteria, we’ll take what they give us.

  The downside of this, of course, is that as Dems scoop up moderates, their governing majority becomes less disciplined. And as the GOP sheds moderates, it becomes more disciplined. So we should not be surprised by the “herding cats/Dems in disarray” narrative that will doubtless continue over the next 2-4 years. That’s the gift of the Tea Party.

• The defeats of Scott Brown and Richard Tisei (apparently) demonstrate two things: One, that the state GOP is a basketcase, who suffer terrible disadvantages in organization and advisory talent. (You knew that.) Two: If you’re going to say “Vote the man, not the party” … then you better work awfully damn hard to be that man.

  Genuine moderation and bipartisanship is tough. If you’re going to be a moderate, you have to stand up for moderation. That means you can’t get away with mealy-mouthed pronouncements, like that the Ryan budget is “a good start to the conversation”; or profess that you’re “pro-choice” when you vote against a pro-choice Supreme Court justice. You have to take on your own party loudly, publicly, and often; be specific; and broker compromise. It’s hard! And honestly, the Senate could have used that kind of leadership from Scott Brown, particularly during the budget battles. But we didn’t get it from Brown often enough, and Tisei didn’t give sufficient indication that he’d be enough of a nuisance to a thoroughly unpopular Congressional GOP.

• Regarding the quality of the opposition: Brown is an energetic and basically genial fellow. But his campaign really sucked, for the most part. The goofy laundry-folding ads; the persistence in going down the dead-end road of Warren’s Cherokee background … it all felt so trivial, as if he wanted the campaign to be fought on such picayune things.

  Frankly, going back to the two Deval elections, we’ve been fortunate to have had such a low quality of political consulting on the GOP side. They are losing winnable elections, and we should not get too smug about it, because they might figure it out someday.

  As David Bernstein says, Brown was a few sizes too small for the role of US Senator, and his campaign didn’t protray him as anything else. That’s an insult to the voters, who have seen great leadership in action. Ted Kennedy’s shadow still looms over that seat, as a towering example of public service, of commitment, and of effectiveness. Brown may have dispelled a Democratic sense of entitlement to the seat in 2010; but he certainly did not fill the shoes of Ted Kennedy in a way that we’ve come to expect.

Michael and Kitty Dukakis speak

Now is a great time — as good as any — to get cracking on a serious way on this.

In Wake of Sandy, Rep. Markey to Host Emergency Meeting to Protect Massachusetts from Climate Change

Will be joined by constituents, lawmakers, leaders in climate change impacts, solution

MEDFORD, MA. – Superstorm Sandy is the latest example of climate change contributing to extreme weather. With Sandy expected to cost between $30 and $50 billion, the storm’s devastating impacts should be taken as a warning for Massachusetts and New England. As temperatures and sea-levels rise and storms become more severe, many of Boston’s best-known landmarks – Faneuil Hall, Quincy Market, North Station, Copley Church – will be threatened by major weather events. Congressman Edward J. Markey (D-Malden) will hold an emergency meeting calling for immediate action in Congress to protect Massachusetts and the region from the devastating impacts of extreme storms fueled by climate change.

WHAT: Emergency meeting on climate change threat to Massachusetts, New England

WHO: Congressman Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), dean of the Massachusetts Congressional delegation
- Kevin Knobloch, President, Union of Concerned Scientists
- Mindy Luber, President and CEO, Ceres

WHEN: Sunday, November 4, 2012, 11 AM

WHERE: Arlington Town Hall, 730 Massachusetts Avenue, Arlington, Mass.
Rep. Markey yesterday penned an op-ed in the Huffington Post on what a post-Sandy climate change action plan would look like, saying, “In 1775, Paul Revere warned Massachusetts revolutionaries of an invasion coming from the sea. With climate change, low-lying areas of Boston and the Bay State could now face an invasion of the sea itself.”
Last week, Rep. Markey released the report, “The New New England: How Climate Change Jeopardizes the Northeast’s Economy and Environment”, on climate change effects in New England. Findings of the report include:
· Ocean temperatures in the Northeast during the first half of 2012 were the warmest on record, which can fuel stronger storms
· Rates of sea-level rise from North Carolina to Massachusetts are up to four times faster than the global average
· January to August 2012 set a new record for high temperatures in New England both on land and in the ocean.
· Extreme downpours and snowfalls have increased by 85 percent since 1948.

##

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ZZ Top and Scott Brown just kicked the can down the road on this one.

But dude, I recycle!

There are 100 US Senators, and they have a massive influence on how the United States will deal with man-caused climate change.

He connected climate change with recycling for God’s sake. Recycling is important to be sure, but *that’s* his link with climate change? Not heating buildings, not electricity generation, not transportation fuels. Not EPA regulations, not subsidizing green technology research, development, nor deployment. Not energy efficiency standards for appliances, CAFE standards, improved transmission lines. Not programs which weather seal and insulate homes, not increased building codes, not even natural gas instead of coal. Not nuclear power, not OPower, not mass transit, not bicycles and sidewalks.

Recycling? The dude clearly has no idea how this works, or just doesn’t care. Either way, it’s a problem.

Let’s remember that he voted against the EPA’s ability to regulate CO2 as a pollutant. Well gosh, if you had no idea why CO2 was a problem, then of course you’d vote that way!

It’s not just his ignorance that galls: It’s the laziness. And the reference to himself, and his purported personal virtues: He folds laundry and has, like, lots of women in the house, so he’s a big feminist. He drives a truck, so he’s a normal dude. Goes along with his wanting credit for being pro-jobs and pro-woman, etc. without actually having to make any votes or pass legislation for it.

This is a Senate race, not Welcome Back Kotter. Come back when you’ve done your homework, Senator.

After touring a seawall at Long Beach in Plymouth battered during the hurricane, Brown said, “I’ll leave that up to the scientists, as to where we stand” on the relationship between climate change and ­violent weather.

“But I believe in climate change,” said Brown, who had expressed ­uncertainty on the issue during his 2010 campaign. “I believe man and nature play a role. It’s a question of how do we step back and try to ­address it. I recycle all the time. . . .’’

via Sandy thrusts debates over climate change, FEMA into spotlight in Mass. Senate race – Politics – The Boston Globe.

I think it was the cartoonist David Rees who once wrote, “If I jump up and down in my office chair, does that make me a f@#$ing astronaut?”

We’re dealing with the aftermath of a climate-fueled crisis — one that will inevitably repeat itself on the shores of our state, costing big money, jobs, and lives.

And all our junior Senator can do is make sure he puts his Coors Lite empties in the right bucket.

Did you need further proof that this fine fellow is not exactly up to the job?

The scale of Sandy was … almost impossible to imagine: WaPo’s Capital Weather Gang is calling this a “500-to-1,000 year precipation event for some parts of the Mid-Atlantic”. Is this an unusual event? Ya think?

The exacerbating effect of climate is obvious in a lot of ways, as Chris Mooney outlines here:

1. More moisture in the air means more rain:

Explains meteorologist Greg Holland of the National Center for Atmospheric Research: “I have no equivocation in saying that all heavy rainfall events, including this one, have an element of climate change in them, and the level of that contribution will increase in the future.”

2. Sea levels are higher, at least partly because the arctic ice cap is melting. That means that a surge is higher, as NYC is suffering today.

And on and on. Check out Mooney’s article, which quotes MIT Professor Kerry Emmanuel.

Brad Plumer had another very useful rundown of why climate is a very very apt topic of discussion right now.

This is not some boutique issue. This ain’t hugging trees and spotted owls. This is about whether you can get your work done; whether you can grow food or afford to buy it; whether it’s safe to live anywhere near the water, including in our biggest cities; whether large groups of people are going to have their land, food and water taken away from them, slowly or catastrophically.

People should talk about it. All the time. That means you, Mr./Ms. Reporter, getting your political fix reading this. That means you in the State House. That means you, Ms. Warren and Sen. Brown. If you’re not thinking and talking about this issue — wondering how to prepare for the immediate effects while mitigating the long-term consequences — you are betraying our interests, and that of our children and grandchildren. It’s that simple.

We’ve spent $4+ trillion fighting terror. And yet we refuse to defend ourselves against the clear and present danger of climate change.

We’ve got to be better ancestors than this.

Brian Norcross of the Weather Channel [ed: Weather Underground site] described the storm this way on his facebook page: “This is a beyond-strange situation. It’s unprecedented and bizarre. ”

… As Kevin Trenberth, former head of the Climate Analysis Section at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research, has written, all superstorms “are affected by climate change”:

The air is on average warmer and moister than it was prior to about 1970 and in turn has likely led to a 5–10 % effect on precipitation and storms that is greatly amplified in extremes. The warm moist air is readily advected onto land and caught up in weather systems as part of the hydrological cycle, where it contributes to more intense precipitation events that are widely observed to be occurring.

via Did Climate Change Help Create ‘Frankenstorm’? | ThinkProgress.

– and it’s just for you and me!

Those of us from the Bay State know what kind of leader Mitt Romney really is.   If you’ve ever wondered why Romney is down 20 points in his home state, this is your chance to find out why.

There’s a form to give your personal angle here.

Well, what I remember is that he never played to Massachusetts’ strengths. We have a great state with lots of high tech and biotech, a mature infrastructure, great education, and so forth. And all we ever seemed to hear was that we were no good, that Teh Taxes Are Too Damn High and it was all the legislature’s fault (which was, to be fair, sometimes true under Finneran et al). It was hard to figure out what the hell he wanted to do with the state, once he had it.

And then after 2005, he was essentially running for President, and spent an immense amount of time out of state. It seemed that he could have cared less about actually running the state — with the major exception of Chapter 58 — the Health Care Law. Remember that at the time — in an era of Bush fatigue, Katrina, an unpopular Iraq war — this seemed like the ticket to national credibility. And although it was not the fantasy of lefties, it marked a logistical improvement over the status quo.

And remember … even if he had done nothing, would the House & Senate have passed something on their own, with veto-proof majorities? Or might the health care ballot initiative passed — which would have increased coverage by slapping taxes on uninsuring employers?

I really think that psychology has changed since he left. Massachusetts has a little more swagger under Deval, because he believes we should play to our strengths, and because the Big Dig Culture of finger-pointing, unaccountability and blame simply doesn’t work under one-party rule. You gotta deliver — and with ethics, transportation, and health care cost reforms, Gov. Patrick and the Massachusetts Dems have done so.

It comes down to this: Mitt wasn’t generally outright malign — as he certainly is now — but he was pretty useless. With the signature exception of Chapter 58, there were no lasting reforms. And with health care, now he’s simply pissed that a Democrat passed the federal version before he could get to it, and he’s been trying to convince people that Obamacare’s grapes are ever so sour anyway.

1. As a State Senator, vote for something that is uncontroversial at the time. (eg. MA’s health care reform, aka Romneycare).
2. As a candidate and US Senator, fulminate against and threaten a similar federal measure. (eg Obamacare)
3. The measure having passed over your objections, then attempt to take advantage of its provisions — all the while still professing how much you hate the damn thing. (eg. Getting Ayla on the family health care plan)

Well there’s another one. Here’s a case where Scott Brown

1. protested that the stimulus “didn’t create one new job” (a contention rated “Pants On Fire”);
2. tried to kill funding for a part of it;
3. then requested said stimulus money on the basis that it would be good for the economy and create jobs.

As background, one needs to know that there are many parts of central and western MA where folks are still using dial-up internet — where broadband internet of any kind is quite tough to come by. This Is Kind Of A Big Deal, and a major obstacle to economic development, education, you name it. You can well imagine.

So in 2008 as a State Senator, Scott Brown voted for $40 million in state investment in broadband access. It passed 37-0. Uncontroversial, you might say.

And when the 2009 Federal stimulus bill was passed, that included $7 billion for rural broadband. But March 3, 2010, Brown files an amendment that would rescind all "unobligated" stimulus funds, including the funds for western Massachusetts broadband expansion, which had not yet been granted. That would include, at that point, broadband money for Massachusetts.

And yet, having failed to gut this item from the stimulus — Brown then sends a letter (pdf) to the feds asking for broadband money for MA, talking up its ability to help the local economy:

“Broadband coverage is essential to the economic wellbeing [sic] and recovery of western Massachusetts, as many of our citizens telecommute and have home-based businesses. For any small business in the region, staying connected is critical to remaining competitive in the increasingly global economy.”

“Broadband coverage is also crucial in bringing together educators and students at our community colleges in order to prepare our next generation of entrepreneurs and job creators.”

Well isn’t that just the damndest thing! Looks like he needed federal spending from the stimulus to get something done that was “essential to the economic wellbeing” of the Commonwealth! You don’t say!

Brown’s big theme, his entire raison d’etre, is that we need to cut spending and “get our fiscal house in order” before we invest in the things that are beneficial for ordinary people. And he was perfectly willing, even eager, to sell the folks of central and western Massachusetts down the river to keep in step with Mitch McConnell and the rest of the Neo-Hooverists in the GOP. And then he wanted the money, because he doesn’t actually believe the things he says about the value of austerity and belt-tightening and how government is useless at creating jobs and economic opportunity.

Central Massachusetts was one of Brown’s strongest areas in the 2010 special. Too bad he didn’t return the favor for those folks.

Maybe someone can pose a question to him about this at Tuesday’s debate — if it’s not called on account of hurricane.

To repeat the obvious: Of course no individual weather event can be chalked up to climate change. But the severity of such events, in the aggregate, are indeed being exacerbated by climate. Climate change => weather on steroids.

And as the report says, this has massive impacts on the quality of life and economy of our home in New England.
Full press release below the fold:

As Historic Storm Approaches New England, Rep. Markey Releases Report on Climate Change’s Effects on Region

Sea-level Rise, Extreme Storms, Other Climate Effects Threaten New England Lives, Livelihoods

WASHINGTON (October 25, 2012) – Weather forecasters are now saying the likelihood of Hurricane Sandy hitting New England in some fashion is increasing, delivering what could be the worst weather conditions since the Perfect Storm of 1991. Climate change scientists, meanwhile, have released study after study saying the extreme weather effects and changing climate of New England will result in storms that are more intense, with worse floods, and damaging sea-level rise, among other effects.

Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) today released a report that pulls together the latest studies on climate change’s negative effects on New England, painting a picture of a region already changed, and in danger of losing essential characteristics and economic engines.

“If climate change continues unchecked, Hurricane Sandy won’t be our October surprise, it could be the new normal for New England, where dangerous storms and other climate effects put lives and livelihoods in danger,” said Rep. Markey, who is the top Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee and the co-author of the only climate change bill to pass a chamber of Congress. “The Perfect Storm was supposed to be a once-in-a-lifetime event, but climate change is increasing the chances of these sorts of historic extreme weather events.”

The report, “The New New England: How Climate Change Jeopardizes the Northeast’s Economy and Environment,” was written by the Democratic staff of the Natural Resources Committee, at the direction of Rep. Markey.

Some of the major findings of the report include:

–Precipitation in New England is becoming increasingly erratic – extreme rain and snowfall events are on the rise, making damaging floods more likely. Extreme downpours and snowfalls have increased by 85 percent since 1948.

–Rates of sea-level rise from North Carolina to Massachusetts are two to four times faster than the global average, causing more erosion an storm threats now and potential inundation in the future.

–The Northeast is heating up rapidly. January to August 2012 set a new record for high temperatures both on land and in the ocean. Without action to curb carbon pollution, this warming is expected to continue. By the end of the century, Massachusetts summers could feel like North Carolina’s.

–Ocean temperatures in the Northeast during the first half of 2012 were the warmest on record, which can fuel stronger storms.

Climate changes in New England are changing the economic climate in key industries throughout the region. The Markey report finds that:

–By 2100, Maine will likely be the only state cold enough to sustain ski resorts, putting thousands out of work and losing billions of dollars for the New England economy.

–In 2012, New England maple syrup production was down 27 percent from the previous year, leading to an approximately $17 million loss to the industry.

–Invasive beetles, changing forests, droughts, and increasing wildfires could change the face – and palette of fall foliage – of New England’s forests, leading to falling tourism visits and dollars.

–As sea levels rise and storms become more severe, many of Boston’s best-known landmarks will be threatened, including Faneuil Hall, Quincy Market, North Station, Fan Pier, Copley Church, John Hancock Tower and the Public Garden.

–Warming waters are already potentially altering the makeup of marine life off New England’s coasts, leading to severe reductions in fish like cod, and massive increases in lobster stocks.

“We have some of the best skiing, fishing and foliage in the world in New England, and it all is at risk due to climate change,” said Rep. Markey. “In order to save our traditions, we need more innovations that will cut the carbon pollution that is changing the very face of our planet.”

… Mitt Romney did not attend every soldier’s funeral; there were at least two cases where he did not.

And in one of those cases, a Gold Star mother claims that, far from comforting, Romney left insensitive phone messages – messages that she calls “bullying” and her husband describes as “abusive.”

“I can’t believe you haven’t returned my call,” Romney said on one of the voice mail messages, according to Stephany Kern, speaking at her Westerly, Rhode Island home this past Saturday. “Here I am making a second call; I haven’t heard from you.”via Gold Star Mother: Romney Skipped Funeral, Left “Bullying” Messages – Talking Politics.

Well, there are no messages left, and Romney, through a spokesperson, denies the characterization.

But what could a Gold Star mom possibly have against the Governor to the point that she’d lie about an issue regarding her dead son? That doesn’t add up.

Chalk it up to Romney’s difficulty relating to people … to say the very least. Bizarre at best.

And speaking of foreign policy, you simply must read this article with the former Israeli head of security, via TPM:

Negotiating with Iran is perceived as a sign of beginning to forsake Israel. That is where I think the basic difference is between Romney and Obama. What Romney is doing is mortally destroying any chance of a resolution without war. Therefore when [he recently] said, he doesn’t think there should be a war with Iran, this does not ring true. It is not consistent with other things he has said. […]

Obama does think there is still room for negotiations. It’s a very courageous thing to say in this atmosphere.

In the end, this is what I think: Making foreign policy on Iran a serious issue in the US elections — what Romney has done, in itself — is a heavy blow to the ultimate interests of the United States and Israel.

It is not as if, if he wins the election, and gets into the White House, he can back up. The Iranians are listening attentively to what he says. When he says, he would arm the opposition in Iran. They understand.

…

Romney has said, Anybody could have decided to finish bin Laden. Even [Jimmy] Carter. This again was a mistaken concept. President Obama didn’t just decide [one day to kill bin Laden]. The operation to end the life of bin Laden necessitated multiple points of decision by him. I know from operations I have been involved with on a smaller scale.

They are very intricate. You don’t just give the order and wait in your office for commanders to come three months later and say it’s done. No. This kind of operation, which is accident prone, hands on operation, one has to make one decision after the other […] It took courage and cool headedness and leadership. Anyone who says it was an easy thing to decide, doesn’t understand what he’s talking about. [Such comments] show a total lack of understanding of what this kind of operation means.

Climate Crock – Climate Change and National Security (2010) – YouTube.

The Vigil to End Climate Silence will take place from Tuesday, Oct. 23rd at 5:30pm to Tuesday Oct. 30th at noon at Government Center in Boston.

Click here to sign up for a shift at the vigil.

Click here for vigil location, directions, and schedule.

Why the Vigil to End Climate Silence?

It’s time to break the silence on climate in the Massachusetts Senate race.

Climate change is the biggest threat the world has ever faced, and we’re quickly running out of time to take action. Countless lives are at stake, yet candidates and the media skirt the issue or fail to mention it at all.

So from October 23-30, Massachusetts residents will participate in a round-the-clock Vigil to End Climate Silence at Government Center in Boston. We encourage those who live far away to organize their own satellite rallies and spread the word.

We need bold climate policies and true leadership, as each passing second without action deepens the crisis we face. Here in Massachusetts, we watched the recent debates in Lowell and Springfield with a sense of growing disbelief. It was business-as-usual and politics-as-usual, with not a single mention of climate change.

We ask that candidates for federal office in Massachusetts spell out their positions on climate change between now and the election, particularly at the October 30th debate—even if the debate moderator or other journalists do not ask them about it.

We need to know whether the candidates acknowledge the climate crisis as the biggest issue of our time. We need to know whether they will make climate change a top policy priority—beginning with a vote to repeal the billions of dollars in federal subsidies and giveaways to the fossil fuel industry, the very industry that is destroying our climate and our future.

Unless people across the country stand up and provide a moral counter-weight to the money and power of the fossil fuel industry, climate change will not be a top priority for elected officials or a central issue in political campaigns. Right now, there’s no better place to take this stand than in Massachusetts, where the US Senate race is in the national spotlight.

Will you help us put climate change in the national spotlight too? Click here to sign up for a shift at the vigil.

We hope to see you standing with us in Boston next week.

Onward,

Vanessa, Craig, Marla, and the 350 Massachusetts team

via 350 Massachusetts.

Now … I know everyone’s got enough to do: Knocking on doors for Elizabeth, Barack, and the whole team. But it’s got to mean something, one way or the other. I will be there on Wednesday morning, and I’ll be multi-tasking: making phone calls for Elizabeth while I’m holding signs. If we win — and we should — it’s gotta mean something.

Whatever you do, do not let this moment pass you by. Don’t let your kids ask how you said and did nothing while the world became a harsher, uglier, hungrier, meaner place to live.

Be Wary of Polls

I assume there will be a lot of polls in the next 3 weeks – and they will likely be all over the map. Just a word of caution to not focus on the poll results but on the important work we have left to do at the grassroots level. Talking to friends, neighbors, co-workers, knocking on doors, and helping get people out to the polls will make the difference in this election.

—–

Oh by the way, another poll, this one by YouGov:

In the state’s headline-grabbing U.S. Senate race, Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren has taken a lead of 7 points over incumbent Republican Senator Scott Brown, 46%-39%. The race was dead-even in September (44%-44%) but it appears to have broken in Warren’s favor.

Now I’m seeing Gail Huff in my TV talking about how Elizabeth Warren should stick to talking about jobs and the economy and not Scott Brown’s record on women’s issues, since he’s totally into women and is married to one and stuff.

Good gravy, Henry VIII had women in his household … not exactly a high bar, folks.

And furthermore, this just shows the #HarvestofFail from harping on one miniscule morsel of oppo research — ie. Warren’s heritage claims — all the way into October. Dumb dumb dumb. Much better to have cultivated a good reason for people to vote for you, which Brown couldn’t manage in two+ years in the Senate. Oh well.

By the way from a clean-energy/climate perspective, that debate was a f’ing horror show. We are all doomed.

Yeah, it sucked. Candy Crowley had a question on climate in the hopper “for all you climate people”, but gosh, they just couldn’t get to it because some dude needed to ask a hardball question about, like, “What’s it like to be you?” or some crap.

It even got to the point where Obama was criticizing Mitt for being against a crappy, dirty, deadly Salem Harbor coal plant while he was Governor of MA. Listen to my man Mitt — he’s pretty damned good!

Now, has Romney changed his position? The question answers itself, I think. But lest you imagine that Obama was criticizing Mitt for his current position, rather than his former opposition, check out Obama’s history on coal. It sucks. It was a straight-up pander from the President, and unfortunately nothing new for him.

Now, it is true that new regs and the low price of natural gas have made it very difficult to build new traditional coal plants. And indeed, there is a big substantive difference between the two men on climate, which I don’t mean to diminish. But that wasn’t Obama’s line last night.

The way Obama and the Dems generally talk about a clean energy conversion, it’s still on the level of fairies and pixie dust. “Energy of the future”? In fact, they drastically understate the real potential and economic power of the industry right now. Our motto should be, as Joe Romm says, Deploy, deploy, deploy, research and development, deploy, deploy, deploy.

How can the President or any other politician give any urgency whatsoever to the fight for clean energy sources, without mentioning the proximate reason for developing them? We are in deep @$% right now — we’re losing a race against the clock.

And yet here we are. Do these things matter to Massachusetts?

• New England fisheries were declared a disaster, and received funds from the government. Lobster is over-producing in Maine, leading to low prices; whereas lobster has crashed in MA.
• Our coastlines are in danger from global warming. We live next to the ocean.  This Might Be An Issue.
• Even maple syrup production is in trouble.
• People who live in heat islands, ie. cities, particularly the elderly, are in greater danger during heat waves. Boston is especially vulnerable.

See this excellent primer on climate in New England from the New England Aquarium.

I’ve spoken with Elizabeth Warren briefly about climate. It essentially fits into her worldview of powerful interests getting their way in Washington. This is absolutely true; corporate capture of our politics are indeed the issue behind America’s inaction. But I don’t feel an urgency for the laws of physics in that perspective. The arc of history is long and bends towards justice; the arm of higher temperatures is upon us now — already crippling important parts of our economy.

She is, of course, plainly the better choice on climate. Scott Brown barely recognizes it’s an issue at all, certainly not anywhere near as important as having to pay 70 bucks to fill up the truck, bro.

Perhaps we’ll get a question in the town hall debate for Romney and Obama, which they will do their best to ignore and move onto their preferred talking points. Nonetheless, an active, forward-looking attitude on climate seems to poll well — even among independent voters.

I’m in that dark-orange part: There is nothing more important. We need Democrats, Republicans, and independents who feel that.

Comment from AmberPaw on 350.org’s Climate Vigil:

350.org is having a Vigil at Government Center from 10/23 -10/30 on this issue

Here is the facebook event, for those inclined to commit to attend and invite friends: https://www.facebook.com/events/321180674646104/?ref=nf
The purpose of the Vigil, as I understand it, is to DEMAND that the senate candidates address climate issues. This will be an “around the clock” event irrespective of weather. Yes, I am committing to at least one shift, and to bring food to it. Climate concerns, which are part of leaving a liveable planet for my own adult children and their someday issue, are a core part of why I became engaged in politics as an adult, as are civil liberties such as free speech, the right of assembly, and separation of powers.

 

Springing thousands of drug dealers from prison because of tainted evidence at a poorly-run state lab is bad enough.

But now, a lack of oversight by the same Massachusetts agency responsible for the drug lab may have also contributed to an outbreak of fungal meningitis that killed at least a dozen people around the country.

And where is Governor Deval Patrick on this?

When he’s not prepping for Sunday talk shows, he’s blaming “a rogue chemist” for 10 years of tainted evidence. When he’s not traveling, he’s accusing the Massachusetts pharmacy linked to the deadly meningitis outbreak of “misleading regulators and operating outside its license.”

Does anyone really think that crime lab supervision reaches the governor’s desk — except in cases of crisis like this one?

Does anyone think that pharma regulation gets to the governor’s desk — except in cases of crisis like this one? And since these drugs are shipped around the country, aren’t they/shouldn’t they be regulated by the feds as well?

The buck stops at the top, that is true. Patrick’s got work to do at home to rectify these situations. That he should have forseen these things, that tighter management from him personally would have prevented them, or that they’re somehow a predictable result of his out-of-state work for Obama, is a very very tenuous argument.

Bottom line is the same: Gov’s got to make it right — with the help of the legislature.

But I think the choice is quite clear, for people who care about progressive things and for people who care about the 6th district: You gotta vote for Tierney.

Let’s deal with the ethical question first and foremost. I am not an expert on the Tierney tax case; I am not an accountant. I am happy to hear from, and be swayed by the opinions, of either. But as far as I can tell, there is no clear-cut case that shows that Tierney must have known that his brothers-in-law were engaged in illegal activity. Is it plausible that he knew? Sure it is. Is it plausible that he didn’t? Also yes. He can’t prove his innocence any more than his brothers-in-law can prove his guilt. The prosecutors didn’t try to nail him. So there you have it.

But the elephant in the room is control of the US House of Representatives, which is now in play. If Richard Tisei is elected, the first and most important vote he will take is for John Boehner as Speaker of the House and Eric Cantor as majority leader — which also means Republicans in control of House committees:

• Budget: Well, that will be chaired by Paul Ryan, if Romney loses and Ryan wins his Wisconsin seat. More attacks on Medicare and more “math” that isn’t math.
• Energy/Commerce: There will be no action on global warming, with a committee dominated by deniers and crackpots like Joe Barton of TX.
• Oversight: More crackpot investigations from that paragon of integrity, Darrell Issa.

And on and on. Tisei has doubtless said and will continue to say, “You’re not running against John Boehner and Eric Cantor; they aren’t on the ballot in Massachusetts.” Well, yes they are. And their proxy is Richard Tisei.

Furthermore, Tisei has not adequately distanced himself from the GOP’s national agenda. Like Scott Brown, he inexplicably wants to repeal the national version of the same health care law he supported in Massachusetts. That’s not moderate: The moderate line would be “mend it don’t end it”, not “repeal and replace” (and replace it with what, after all?). Tisei is also using Paul Ryan’s sleazy line that the new health law is paid for by Medicare cuts — when not reforming Medicare payment would make the program insolvent by 2016.

And unless Tisei makes it clear otherwise, we should assume that his victory will make government shutdowns and debt default more likely. Last year’s debt ceiling debacle hurt our fragile recovery. What would he have done in that situation?

I will stick my neck out and say that in a different year, this race wouldn’t be as critical. Back in the 1980′s and before, there was less ideological rigidity on the right. I remember hearing the story (apocryphal?) that Reagan’s White House sent NYC’s liberal Republican rep S. William Green a card saying “Thank you for voting with us when you could.” In 1994, Chicago voters sent their powerful but disgraced Congressman Dan Rostenkowski packing — to be replaced by an amiable moderate Republican, Michael Flanagan. (In 1996, Flanagan was replaced by … Rod Blagojevich.) One wouldn’t have known at the time that a vote for Flanagan was a vote to install Newt Gingrich as Speaker — and in the context of the 1994 wave, it wouldn’t have made any difference.

Tisei may be a nice moderate fellow. Or not. But it’s absolutely beyond question that he will vote for and enable people at the national level who are not nice or moderate at all. And if he’s not distancing himself now, he sure as hell isn’t going to do so when he gets to Washington.

Keep the crazies out. Vote Tierney.

We just got a couple of posts from Leominster about Democratic activity — Warren’s visiting, and they’re opening up an office. Brown took Leominster by 8,127 to 4,707. And if you look at Central MA on that map, it’s a sea of red — not just defeats for the Democrats, but absolute stompings.

A big part of the race is simply keeping it close — or just closer — in those towns. I always think that even if we’re absolutely destroying the other team, there’ll still be at least 40% that won’t vote for us no matter what. And this is also true: Even if you’re getting blown out (which may well happen in central MA), if you can make it slightly closer, you’re doing well. In Leominster, a 60-40% defeat would actually be an improvement.

So big encouragement to Leominster Dems. It may seem unappreciated, but this may be where the race is won.

Kept at bay for months in the US Senate race by a pact curbing outside advertising, Karl Rove’s political group, Crossroads GPS, has begun blasting voters with “robocalls” targeting Elizabeth Warren.

One call criticizes Warren’s work leading a panel that monitored the federal bank bailout, erroneously suggesting she ran the bailout, and another claims that her support for President Obama’s health law could limit Medicare availability, even though the law does not propose doing so.

via Anti-Warren calls from Karl Rove group do not violate outside spending pact – Politics – The Boston Globe.

We’ve complained about the tendency of big media (including the Globe) to simply relay competing claims and leave the fact-checking to another article — or worse, the “opinion” section. Not here. Bierman calls Rove’s BS exactly what it is.

Well done. More like that, please.

(And yes, of course this scrutiny should apply to claims made by Democrats as well. It happens to be the case that Democrats these days don’t lie as often, easily, or blatantly as Republicans, but there’s always a temptation.)

On the other hand, we have a law professor at a top school, who also came from a fairly humble background; working her way from a public law school background to being the pre-eminent voice for consumers against a predatory, out-of-control financial system. She’s published several books on the topic. She has a long work history, and a sizeable published record. If you wanted to know what she cares about, what kind of senator she’d be, or where her priorities lie, it’s not hard at all to find out. Dig in.

And yet, all we’re hearing about is a miniscule side issue; something that has absolutely no impact on what kind of service either of these people would render to the Massachusetts or US public. This story should be left to the Howie Carrs of the world to snicker about. It should have stayed at the level of a racist dog whistle: “Lie-a-Watha”, ho ho ho. If not pretty, it’s all in the way of things – that’s just politics.

How much is the MA public hearing about major ideas? The candidates’ respective plans for the economy? For income inequality? Whether or not to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — which affects one sixth of the economy, touches practically every man, woman, and child in some way, and is the most significant piece of social legislation since Medicare? Global warming — which has unimaginably immense consequences for Massachusetts, much less the world?

And yet, Scott Brown brings this idiotic non-issue up at every opportunity. His whole campaign has gotten stoned on its own stash of tendentious oppo, or is enslaved to some internal poll that says this is totes the silver bullet, dude.

Or maybe he has absolutely no confidence in his ability to defend his own voting record, to tout a big portfolio of accomplishment on behalf of his constituents. Hrm, wonder where that is.

I know I’m being boring, but this is just some serious horseshit we’ve been seeing. We could have had another Kerry-Weld 15-round heavyweight battle; and instead we’ve got a picayune squabble that would embarrass a first grade recess in its triviality.

Does this race matter or not? Hello?

Addendum: To be clear … We posted that video yesterday of the Brown staffers making asses of themselves. We will fight on that level if we have to. We will fight on meaningful things or meaningless things, because you have to win the politics game to play the policy game — where it’s all consequential. But the public should demand better — and I think by and large, they do.

9/22/2012, nearby Eire Pub in Boston, at a rally for Scott Brown including former Mayor Ray Flynn. Some supporters of Elizabeth Warren were also gathered around with signs. Here you can see Brown’s staffers making “war whoops” and “tomahawk chops”, presumably in reference to Warren’s Cherokee heritage. Identified in video making the chop are Brown’s Constituent Service Counsel Jack Richard (camoflage shirt) and — we believe — Massachusetts GOP operative Brad Garrett Garnett, front and center with tan baseball cap and gray hoodie, leading the whoops and chops. (Garrett is known for having recently delivered a cake to Warren for the anniversary of the Occupy movement.)

(Also present, though apparently not participating in the whoops and chops, are Greg Casey, Deputy Chief of Staff, (black polo near end of video), Jerry McDermott, State Director, (blue fleece and shades on head), and Jennifer Franks, special assistant, (plaid shirt, beginning).

Now, for a campaign that has shown such piety, such respect for Native American ancestry that they simply couldn’t allow the blonde, white, “clearly not” Native American Ms. Warren to sully it … somehow that decency, restraint, and respect has not trickled down to the staff of our good senator.

Look at this production from the Massachusetts GOP:

I think Senator Brown has some explaining to do about the nice guy, respectful tone that he sets in his office, and on his campaign.

(And maybe we can put this whole preposterous issue to bed once and for all.)

Seriously, Senator?

Are you this desperate?

Do you really think this kind of BS is going to save you?

This is Kerry Healey’s garage-rapist ad redux, folks. We’ve got a sitting Senator with an actual voting record and a country that needs leadership … and he wants to talk about Cherokeegate.

If there’s justice, Brown the Clown will be laughed off the stage. And if this works, I will eat my hat.

Brown hits Warren for Native American issue in new spot – POLITICO.com.

via johnk, who’s got more to say.

Travelers was fighting to gain permanent immunity from asbestos-related lawsuits by establishing a $500 million trust. The trust would have been divided among current and future victims of asbestos poisoning who had claims against the nation’s largest asbestos manufacturer, Johns-Manville, which had been insured by Travelers before it went bankrupt.

Travelers won most of what it wanted from the Supreme Court, and in doing so Warren helped preserve an element of bankruptcy law that ensured that victims of large-scale corporate malfeasance would have a better chance of getting compensated, even when the responsible companies go bankrupt.

But after Warren left the case, it continued to twist and turn through the legal system, leaving a result that has been disastrous for asbestos victims. Travelers, in part because of its Supreme Court victory, has held onto its immunity from most lawsuits. But a ruling on Feb. 29 in a separate court has taken the company off the hook for paying out the $500 million settlement.

via Elizabeth Warren was key in asbestos case – Boston.com.

I heard some of Warren on WTKK this morning, and frankly I don’t know if she did as good a job explaining the situation as this.

Stuff is complicated. I don’t think this makes her a corporate stooge by any stretch; she was trying to ensure that victims got paid. Now, that the company decided to try to continue to weasel out of it after her involvement was over, strikes me as not her fault.

I think that’s a fair reading of the evidence.

I think we have to understand what the landscape is:

• People like Brown and think he’s nice.
• People don’t really know Warren, by and large.
• People in MA do not like the Republicans right now.
• Warren’s views are more in step with what they’d prefer to vote for.

The fact that Brown went so heavy after Warren for the Cherokee thing, I think, made him seem petty and not very pleasant. It’s not an important issue to anyone who doesn’t read Howie Carr religiously. If he were to play to his strength, he would have avoided the subject and not taken the bait from Keller. Minus one on nice points for Brown. (It didn’t help that he seemed a little nervous and hyper at the start.)

Warren did a very fine job of peeling back Brown’s actual voting record, on behalf of the wealthy and oil companies at the expense of the middle class. And really, he didn’t disagree, taking a hard line against all tax increases on anyone, no matter how unsympathetic. He even used that wonderful GOP euphemism “job creators.” This is not stuff that’s going to get Brown re-elected — at least not with a credible opponent.

(His touting of the US Chamber of Commerce and the NFIB as independent, non-partisan blue-eyed ingenues was laughable, though that will likely evaporate, since not many folks know who they are.)

Warren also came across as intelligent, credible, calm, and personable. She was not vicious or strident; she merely talked about his record, which seemed to make him uncomfortable (and it should). He spent a lot of time explaining votes, and “if you’re explaining, you’re losing.”

Brown had a little momentum going in the second half — Warren got a little stuck on the asbestos question. But given the facts of the case, that’s not going to stick to her — it doesn’t easily follow a pre-existing narrative about her.

I thought she did just fine, and did what she needed to do. She showed what she cared about, why she’s better than the other guy, and that she’s a smart, credible, un-crazy person. Senatorial, in other words.

Well done, Ms. Warren.

Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) refused to say whether he still supports Mitt Romney for president on Wednesday, a day after he distanced himself from Romney’s now famous “47 percent” remarks in comments first made to The Hill.

“I made it very, very clear where I stand on these issues,” he told reporters Wednesday.

Uh, yeah. And very very vague on whether he supports the standard-bearer of his party.

Couple of things:

1. This gives Warren an excellent line for the stump or debates. “The Senator won’t say whether he supports Mitt Romney for President. To be clear: I support Barack Obama for President.” Cheers ensue. In all seriousness, Brown’s correct to worry about a coattails effect — both in Warren’s favor due to her connection with Obama, but also with any connection between himself and Romney.
2. Romney hasn’t exactly been popular in MA for a while now, starting around the “cattle rancher at a vegetarian convention” line back in 2005(?). But he hasn’t been downright poison to his fellow Republicans, either, perhaps because he hasn’t been around much. Up to this point, a Scott Brown-type GOP candidate could endorse him in a pro forma manner, and no one would really be surprised, and most wouldn’t hold it against him. Brown apparently thinks that’s changed, and he’s usually got good antennae for this kind of thing.

   And if it’s changed in Massachusetts, perhaps it’s changing elsewhere as well — not to the same extent in more conservative places, but still …

“He demonizes some. He panders to others. His campaign strategy is to smash America apart and then cobble together 51 percent of the pieces. If an American president wins that way, we all lose,” Romney said. “So, Mr. President, take your campaign of division and anger and hate back to Chicago, and let us get about rebuilding and reuniting America.”

This was, of course, some three months after his famous remarks about the 47%.

You couldn’t make this guy up.

Unfortunately, we find the reporter speculating on the significance of the story as a lead-in to the story itself:

Drug lab crisis may follow Governor Patrick

Scandal may negatively affect governor’s image

With a major speech at the Democratic National Convention earlier this month, Governor Deval Patrick finally enjoyed the breakthrough moment on the national stage he had been actively seeking since the beginning of his second term.

Now, Patrick finds himself grappling with the kind of crisis that has the potential to taint his national image and keep him bogged down in the details of governing.

This is typical Globe, and it’s lame. The headline and the lede here are speculation. Speculation does not belong in a straight news story; there are other sections of the paper for that. A news story should not tell us how to evaluate the facts, or predict political or image fallout. That happens on its own, without a reporter’s encouragement. And the story is still unfolding.

I am emphatically not talking about “fact-checking”, which is the province of straight news reporting.  If Gov. Patrick were to say the sun rises in the west, then definitely, a straight news story should indicate that it rises in the east. One can’t let people get away with lying to the public. That’s not speculation or analysis, that’s just factual reporting.

And if the opinion writers, “analysts”, or the editorial page were to hold forth about Gov. Patrick’s image or legacy, that’s all good and grist for the mill. If one turns to the Opinion section, or if we see a columnist’s face, we can expect a dialogue on interpreting facts.

The contentions of the story about underfunding should be of immense concern to the Governor, his underlings — and the legislature, who after all appropriate those funds. And apparently, the chain of command was extremely sluggish in dealing with the bad business; underlings were not empowered to deal with the problem; and supervisors were insufficiently vigilant.

There’s a big and real story here. Just report facts and have enough respect for readers that they can form their own impressions — or at the very least, leave the speculation for the opinion section.

As the Gov says, Scott Brown’s got a “cameras-on” game, and a “cameras-off” game.

And then there’s when he thinks the camera’s off, I guess:

Now, think about this. On one hand, you have a candidate who is completely committed to representing the middle class, to being that Senator for the folks who can’t afford a lobbyist.

And on the other hand, you have a guy asking for money from a plutocrat who’s trying to buy American democracy — indeed, who seems to have successfully purchased the political class of the entire state of Kansas. You have a Senator who, during an absolutely brutal economy, held unemployment benefits hostage to tax cuts for the rich, and is “crystal clear” he’ll hold middle class tax cuts hostage to those for the rich.

One of these candidates represents the interests of the vast majority of Massachusetts voters — even though many of them will not vote for her.

One of these candidates serves the interests of the extremely wealthy — over and against the rest of us — as much as he thinks he can get away with.

We’re gonna win this one if we make this case. And if we work.

Warren may retool TV ads – News – Boston.com.

Warren advisers, while acknowledging the concerns and pressure, insist the discussions surrounding the ad shift are part of a long-planned strategy for the final two-month push to the Nov. 6 election. They reject much of the criticism of the summer media blitz, pointing to recent polls that show Warren close or tied with Brown, a popular incumbent who has also flooded the airwaves over the last few months.

“This election is not about 30-second TV ads or sound bites,’’ said Rubin. “We have a lot more to do, but we are still in a good position.’’

 

Now, count me as one who didn’t think the old ads were all that bad. But they were a little Johnny-One-Note. I’m hoping is not a total overhaul of the campaign’s themes, which are good, strong, and resonant.

But as is widely acknowledged, Brown’s ads are very good — better, in fact. The race is binary, after all: Any criticism or assessment of Warren’s media or campaign is only in comparison with Brown, who is a very savvy and energetic politician. He is not to be underestimated, and any sense that she should be crushing him just based on party ID or the President’s numbers, is just silly. (Please keep in mind that Obama is running against Mitt Romney. I mean, srsly.)

Keep in mind also that paid media is only a part of the campaign, as Doug Rubin points out in the article. The most important part is us: Shoe-leather campaigning and calling, each of us an ambassador for the campaign. If you think you’ve got a better, warmer and more compassionate way to state her case, go do it on the streets or on the phone.

She’s terrific on the campaign trail. People come away impressed. She’s got a jacked-up, energized base. Like Brown, she’s got plenty of money. She’s got a team of winners working for her. There’s plenty to work with as far as the ads are concerned.

Tune-up time, not panic time. This will be a race for the ages.

The Democrats are in a delightful position of having 1.) a pretty decent record to run on, under the circumstances, 2.) A fairly clear focus and message, and 3.) laughably inept — if extremely well-funded – opponents.

The messaging this week was pretty tight, pretty easily formulated, viscerally understandable, and substantive:

• GM is alive;
• Bin Laden is dead
• Dems arrested the freefall of the economy — we’re still recovering but getting better
• The health care bill is protecting people now, and will do even more in the future.

With regard to a statement of values:

• We’re all in this together;
• Everyone deserves a fair shot in life; people shouldn’t be exploited
• Everyone needs to pay their fair share;
• Women should be treated like fully human adults.
• Arithmetic.

It seemed so clear and easy … like the Dems were really proud to run on things they genuinely believed.

Contrast this week’s pride and optimism with the grouchy, doddering, self-loathing GOP convention: In the process of trying to turn Obama and the Democrats into a socialist collectivist dependency-craving caricature, the Republican ticket has mostly succeeded in caricaturing themselves. If one is motivated only by spite (as expressed so purely by Mitch McConnell), one can get led around like a dog chasing a steak, and end up looking pretty silly. And it’s no one else’s fault.

• No one made the GOP oppose the continued existence of the US auto companies … but they did.
• No one made them oppose all these popular aspects of the health care law, where it’s real easy for the Dems to trot out a young kid or sympathetic adult who is benefiting from the numerous protections.
• No one’s making them side 100% with the wealthy versus the middle class and poor with regard to taxes. But that’s how they roll.

The fact is that Republicans could have acted with the President on any number of initiatives, the President’s approval ratings would be higher, yes. But so would the Republicans’. For instance, Romney and Obama would both have a plausible claim on the mantle of health care visionary. And rather than the current vicious cycle of spite and obstruction, we’d see two parties competing with each other for how productive, reformist, efficient, and responsive they could be. That’s how it’s supposed to work … and without romanticizing or sugar-coating our history, it often has worked that way.

The GOP is a party in thrall to its corporate media creations: Fox and Rush and Beck and the 24-7 parade of ConservaPorn. Endless Conan-the-Barbarian* politics is excellent for talk radio ratings, and sells lots of gold bars and stuff. But it leads to a race to the margins, a kind of political correctness where it’s seen as treason to hold something other than the “purest” spite for the “enemy”.**

It is also a crazy, silly way to govern. It leads nowhere. The party cuts itself a smaller and smaller slice of the ideological pie — making itself more dangerous when it is swept into power, but also more prone to long bouts in the political wilderness. It’s entirely possible that we could have three out of four elections be decisive elections for Congressional Democrats. Isn’t that remarkable?

*(Cush enemies. See them dwiven before you. And hear the lamentations of da wimmen.”

**(To a much lesser extent these days, this also exists on the left in the form of firebaggers and the emo-left, but they are without signficant influence, even when they’re right.)

Get fired up.

I had some bad audio at the very beginning, which I’ve clipped out. My first question was that even with a party that’s found its voice, no one’s talking about global warming. Where do we go from here?

If my tone is a bit fanboy-ish, it’s because I’m a fan of this Guv. Guilty.

Mud-slinging seems to be a common refrain from both sides of the race — the Women for Brown group, affiliated with the Brown campaign, sent Warren a basket filled with laundry supplies to help her “clean up her act.”

“With all the mudslinging Elizabeth Warren and her allies have been doing, we thought these laundry supplies would be a useful gift,” said Angela Davis, chairwoman of the Women for Brown coalition. “We might never see Professor Warren fold her own clothes, but she does need to clean up her act and stop with her dirty politics.”

Well played, Women for Brown. Subtle.

Think about that kind of depth. I only hope we’ve got another generation coming up who is as talented.

Barney Frank illustrated the difference between “Myth” and Mitt Romney, and ruefully suggested that MA Democrats could have done a lot more with the guy Romney was supposed to be: A business and job-creation ninja of spotless integrity, rather than a rather ordinary plutocrat and opportunist. (We were frankly rather lucky that universal health care was one of his opportunities of which he availed himself.)

Coakley told a little joke about Scott Brown and Mitch McConnell driving in a truck …

Bill Galvin spoke of the essential mission of increasing voting, of the recent voting fraud scandal in western MA, and warned that we as Democrats need to be prepared for a recount, for provisional ballots in every state. “They’re trying to figure out how to prevent people from voting, we want people to vote!” Pretty fundamental difference.

Mark Shriver talked about his father’s incredible religious faith, energy and legacy: Peace Corps, Head Start, Legal Services, Upward Bound, and told stories of his father’s influence on JFK’s attitudes towards Martin Luther King. He’s a remarkable example of a time of seemingly infinite possibility. Here’s the entire audio file of his remarks, about 12 minutes. (I apologize for a totally unacceptable level of background noise, but that’s amateur field recording for you.)

I’ll add more to this post as I figure out my technical tools.

Deval fired them up with a sense of purpose. Ted Strickland lobbed devastating salvos against Romney and Ryan, here with one-liners, there with Scripture. Tammy Duckworth’s story showed iron courage. Julian Castro deftly wove together an inspiring life and family story while stripping the bark off of a hapless GOP ticket.

This was a party that seemed to have found its voice, its pride, and its purpose. Those are hard-won discoveries, since the timidity, disunity, and political fecklessness of 2010 led to disaster. But the accomplishments remain; and the note of pride was very much in evidence tonight and with pride and accomplishment comes joy. That’s what we felt tonight; that was the story opening-night.

What a contrast between the atmospheres of national health care politics and what happened in Massachusetts. In MA, the big players and “stakeholders” continue to hold together a strong consensus — which includes a commitment to talking with each other, working through differences and knotty problems, and understanding that there is no perfection, only continual, incremental improvement. Any of the relevant groups — patient advocates, the hospitals, the employers, insurers — could have pulled out, or started to demagogue the whole thing, because it’s easy to criticize hard decisions. But they haven’t, because there’s broad agreement that 1.) everyone should be covered, and 2.) it shouldn’t crush the budget or the rest of the economy. And so we’ve gotten Chapter 58 and cost containment parts I and II.

And Romney’s bald, embarrassing opportunism shows how far adrift the GOP really is. Their line is this:

• Obama wants to spend too much, but he’s cutting Medicare;
• Obamacare is a disaster, but Romneycare is OK [but please don't ask about it];
• Obama’s done too much with bailouts; but couldn’t rescue Paul Ryan’s Janesville plant;
• The debt’s too high; we need more tax cuts; etc.

It’s just goofy and incoherent. It’s loser talk. And I don’t understand why a smart guy like Romney would try so hard to be a crappy candidate who will likely lose.

We just gotta put ‘em away this week.

John Walsh speak, you listen!

On canvassing, meeting voters face-to-face — how it works and why it matters:
On the special emphasis of field in the Warren campaign:
On the vaunted Menino effect — will it matter?
On the ground game in other cities like Springfield and Holyoke:

So finally here’s this, from this morning. Warren talks about how Ted Kennedy took up the cause of maintaining bankruptcy protections, at her urging:

The Democrats need to do better than that this week … and that’s where Massachusetts comes in.

Elizabeth Warren embodies the center-left’s confrontation of a wildly unjust economic/political order. Large corporations, especially banks, have abandoned a business model in which their own bottom line grows in direct proportion to the satisfaction of their customers; and instead depends upon deception, obfuscation, and exploitation of their market power to squeeze ill-gotten gains from their marks, er, customers. She is a voice of outrage against an exploitative game, but perhaps even more importantly, of a need to set things back into balance: The meltdown didn’t exactly work out well for most banks, either. Her message will doubtless speak to the lingering sense of injustice among a public suffering for someone else’s hubris and stupidity.

Deval Patrick is one of the few Democratic elected officials who actually dares speak in a language of values. He has always spoken a language of neighborliness, as in the sense of the Good Samaritan. And who is my neighbor? It is not merely a sense of empathy or pity that is redemptive; rather, neighborliness is enlightened self-interest — that we benefit when those around us benefit, that reciprocity and interdependence makes us even stronger than mere self-assertion.

Properly developed, this theme can redirect the “we built it” theme of the GOP convention and infuse it with a theme of common purpose. There is no necessary distinction between the necessity of hard work, initiative and ingenuity on one hand; and the need to strengthen the broader community at large. As Henry Ford realized as he doubled workers’ wages in 1914, a producer needs customers, and broadly-shared prosperity makes more customers.

Massachusetts can deliver this message to the country this week. Our state’s leaders can determine the theme of the national election. Watch closely.

Update: Wow, jconway and I must be Vulcan mind-melding. Didn’t see the NYT article or his post before I posted … weird.

Charley on the LYNX light rail

I’m now remembering, not very fondly, how much of going to a national convention is pure rigamarole. Every morning I need to get into town, find a legit parking spot, get on the light rail, get my press credentials or tickets for that day’s events — a fair amount of goat rodeo before you actually talk to anyone about anything relevant.

That being said, Charlotte’s a lovely city; I’ve come here twice before to sing, and enjoyed it. It’s got a fairly compact, walkable downtown (called “Uptown”), a cute little light rail system and nifty shoppes just southwest of Uptown. The entire downtown is taken up with convention hullabaloo; streets are jammed with folks of ethnic and age diversity. Frankly I’m a little disappointed that there aren’t more gigantic Uncle Sam hats and general Americaphernalia; on the other hand, there is boocoos of Obamaphernalia. There are gory anti-abortion ad trucks circling the downtown, and there was another ad truck covered with “Democrats: Where socialism and corruption come together”, or somesuch teapartyisms.

I’m now blogging from “thePPL”, which is a para-convention spot to sit down, charge devices, blog, drink coffee and whatnot. It’s entirely acceptable, if not glam.

Let me know some angles you’d like me to pursue. What are your priorities? What would you like to know? I’m in pursuit of some targets — can’t disclose just yet. Be in touch!

I am pleased to be a Globe subscriber. Usually I feel that the paper’s coverage of politics is reasonably thorough, fair, professional, robust, and detailed.

I was very disappointed in Thursday’s coverage of Paul Ryan’s Vice-Presidential nominating speech the previous night. While deftly delivered and ecstatically received in the hall, Ryan included a large number of demonstrably false statements. In his report, your reporters Matt Viser and Brian MacQuarrie focused on the atmospherics, neglecting to point out the following:

1. Ryan blames the Obama adminstration for allowing a GM plant to shut down in Janesville, WI. He has made this claim before, and it is certifiably false; the shutdown was ordered in June 2008.
2. He called the Affordable Care Act a “government takeover” of health care, also a common but demonstrably false claim. This made Politifact’s “Lie of the Year” in 2010.
3. Ryan decried the reduction of $716 billion in future spending that the Affordable Care Act contemplates — while Ryan’s own budget is dependent upon those very savings.

And so on. There were many more, perfectly well-documented, perfectly clear. Ryan’s speech was riddled with barefaced lies, very well documented by Dylan Matthews of the Washington Post, Dan Amira and Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine, among many others.

Viser and MacQuarrie should not feel constrained to merely relate the speech’s style and internal reception; they must report on the substance of what is said and compare it to the real world. To do otherwise opens the door to demagoguery and cynical manipulation — the very dangers to democracy that our professional media exists to fight. NPR’s Mara Liasson gave a good example of how this might better be done, reporting on Ryan’s speech Thursday morning. She interspersed the problematic sections of the speech with her own corrections of the factual record. She did not ignore style and atmosphere. But she was not going to be played for a chump, either.

Indeed, the Globe as a whole did not let Ryan off the hook. In a separate “analysis” articles, the Globe’s Peter Canellos politely suggested — in the Opinion section, of all places — that Ryan’s “bill of particulars against Obama strained credibility”; and Callum Borchers stated blandly that Ryan’s remarks lacked “context”.

.Also in Thursdays’s paper was a report by Michael Kranish titled “Medicare Arguments Key for both Parties”. In focusing on the relative political effectiveness of the two parties’ Medicare claims, Kranish gives no indication of the truthfulness of any of these claims. His quotes are from partisan sources — DNCC Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, and Mitt Romneys’ book No Apology — or from pollsters. None are from respected, independent, empirical analysts — eg. the Congressional Budget Office, Kaiser Family Foundation — that actually might illuminate the substance of the issue.

While it is certainly necessary to discuss the politics of Medicare, it must be done in a context of fact. To leave out factual context — particularly with a complex and emotionally charged issue like Medicare/health care — again enables demagoguery and fear-mongering from unscrupulous partisans. If all we know is which soundbite moves votes, and which doesn’t, we’ll never know about what policy works and what doesn’t. We will be easily manipulated, voting for a pig-in-a-poke, based on our own dimly-understood sympathies, prejudices and heuristics rather than facts. This would be a lousy way to shop for a car, much less choose a President.

And today (Friday), we read “Fact checkers dispute Romney’s claims”. This is better than nothing, of course. But even this headline makes it into a he-said-she-said situation, where “fact-checkers” are just another claimant, another voice in the political fray. Fact-checking organizations arose as the professional media abdicated that role, searching for a larger margin share by resolving not to offend anyone.

Fact-checking should should permeate every article that appears in the Globe; it should exemplify the culture of the newsroom. Comparing claims to reality should not be confined to some ghetto in the newspaper — and certainly not the “Opinion” section, as the Canellos column was.

Fact-checking is the news; it is the critical role of a news organization in our civic life. Your readers and subscribers expect nothing less.

Sincerely,

Charles Blandy