Blue Mass Group

The Weekly Joke Revue is coming later today, but this news is just too precious to wait: George W. Bush is planning a book “outlining strategies for economic growth.” NYT:

Two months from now, he plans to publish a book outlining strategies for economic growth.

Republicans talking about strategies for economic growth is like Mitt Romney talking about strategies for pet transportation, or Scott Brown talking about how to keep student loan rates low.

The GOP may offer a lot to voters who want employers to decide whether women can get reproductive health care, and whether interest rates on student loans should suddenly double to benefit banks, but after crashing the economy in 2008 and making tax cuts for billionaires their #1 subsequent legislative priority the party has no credibility at all on economic matters.

Hello friends,

I come to you with exciting news. After a lot of hard work from our dedicated board, we’ve released the full agenda for the Young Democrats of Massachusetts’ Annual Convention, being hosted at SEIU 1199, 150 Mt. Vernon St., Dorchester, MA on Saturday May 26th. It includes an all-star line up of young Democrats leading attendees through a series of engaging trainings including: Josh Dawson, Executive Director, Steve Grossman Committee; Alex Goldstein, Executive Director, Together PAC; Roger Lau, Political Director, Elizabeth Warren for US Senate; and many more. We’ve also got some great speakers lined up including Chairman John Walsh and US Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren.

We’ve also gone ahead and posted a list of the current candidates for YDM’s board of directors. A strong list of candidates who I know will help lead this organization to future success.

For those that plan to attend, please purchase your tickets by May 21st to take advantage of a $5 early-bird registration discount - just $15 for this fantastic event, including complimentary breakfast and lunch!

Courthouse News reported today that Judge Forest in a 68 page decision blocked this Section as potentially being used to block dissent, and failing to pass constitutional muster.  See also coverage in Politico.    The NDAA was put under a temporary restraining order in part because it is so vague that no one can know for sure where they can go, what they can say, or what they can publish without being subject to indefinite detention.Photo courtesy of Shutterstock

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Republican Scott Brown voted a little over a week ago to double your student loan interest rate.  That is a fact and it is part of his record.  However, he’s trying to cover his political backside with a gimmick bill that fails to actually accomplish anything other than giving Brown a misleading talking point.

Don’t let Republican Scott Brown shake his political Etch-A-Sketch and pretend like he never voted to double your student loan interest rate. Further, make sure all your friends, family, and neighbors are aware of Brown’s real record. Please click on the below graphic and Share it with your Facebook Friends. Use your Facebook Wall to inform your friends about Brown’s harmful vote and lousy record.

If you’re on Twitter, you can also Re-Tweet ProgressMass’ tweet of the graphic here.

All Massachusetts voters deserve to know Republican Scott Brown’s real record.  You can help inform them.

Jim Tankersly in the National Journal:

There’s one idea, though, that TED’s organizers recently decided was too controversial to spread: the notion that widening income inequality is a bad thing for America, and that as a result, the rich should pay more in taxes.

(RELATED:The Speech That’s Too Hot for TED)

TED organizers invited a multimillionaire Seattle venture capitalist named Nick Hanauer – the first nonfamily investor in Amazon.com – to give a speech on March 1 at their TED University conference. Inequality was the topic – specifically, Hanauer’s contention that the middle class, and not wealthy innovators like himself, are America’s true “job creators.”

(RELATED:The Slides That Are Too Hot for TED)

“We’ve had it backward for the last 30 years,” he said. “Rich businesspeople like me don’t create jobs. Rather they are a consequence of an ecosystemic feedback loop animated by middle-class consumers, and when they thrive, businesses grow and hire, and owners profit. That’s why taxing the rich to pay for investments that benefit all is a great deal for both the middle class and the rich.”

Basically, Scott Brown and Mitt Romney’s campaigns boil down in large part to trying to hide this data-driven truth:

In a capitalist economy, the true job creators are consumers, the middle class. And taxing the rich to make investments that grow the middle class, is the single smartest thing we can do for the middle class, the poor and the rich.

Fortunately, BMG is reality-based, and we can handle the truth, even if TED and, more generally, the GOP can’t.

I’ve said for years that when a campaign releases an internal poll to the press, that’s a good time to ignore it.

The latest from Richard Tisei, the Republican running in the 6th congressional district, is an extreme example of why internal polls should hardly ever be taken seriously.  As you may have heard, the Tisei campaign leaked an “internal poll,” conducted by one John McLaughlin, which purported to show that Tisei was up 7 points over incumbent Democrat John Tierney.  An impressive result, surely, though not completely implausible – and they even got a story in Roll Call out of it.  But suspicions were raised when the poll also purported to show Scott Brown up an extremely unlikely 24 points over Elizabeth Warren.

And, well, would you look at that.  The poll is total crap.

[T]he GOP poll does have elevated Republican representation, GOP poll author John McLaughlin said in an email to The Salem News.

The actual makeup of registered voters in the district is 13 percent Republican, 30 percent Democrat and 57 percent independent. But their poll respondents were 22 percent Republican, 29 percent Democrat and 49 percent independent.

One of the amazing things about this is that the pollster more or less admitted that the poll was crap.

But really, this story should serve as a caution – as if yet another one were necessary – to the media: do not pay attention to or report on internal polls.  And yes, that goes for our side as well as the other guys.  This Tisei poll is so embarrassing that his campaign should try to get its money back, but even in general, internals are just not reliable enough to justify the pixels.

I’m closing my eyes, squinting hard and repeating “bloody sock, bloody sock, bloody sock” …

Former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling asked Rhode Island officials for more money for his video game company 38 Studios LLC in a private meeting Wednesday morning, held to discuss whether its reported financial troubles threaten the state’s $75 million investment in the company.

So Rhode Islanders suffer through a lousy economy, cut schools/libraries/fire/police, and this turkey wants another payout?

This is not the way to do things. (And yes, that includes Evergreen and Solyndra.)

When a business says, “Give us a tax break”, the state should say,

“No.

“But here’s what we will give you:

• “We will give you good workers, people who have been well-educated by prepared, accountable school systems.
• “We will provide you with good infrastructure, so that you can get to work on time and get your products to market effectively.
• “We will provide you — to the extent a state can — with good health care, clean air, clean water, and nice public amenities, so that people will want to move here, stay here, and dedicate their lives to your mutual success.
• “We will keep our rules and regulations clear, to make it easy to know where and how to set up, and keep the lawyers away.
• “And because of all of these things, we will provide you with a market for your goods — ie., a public that is capable of affording and enjoying your product.”

That’s setting up a business for success: not throwing good money after bad.

[Cross-posted from the ProgressMass blog.  Like ProgressMass on Facebook and follow on Twitter.]

Back in March, Goldman Sachs’ executive director, Greg Smith, left the firm, noting a toxic culture in which Goldman Sachs’ staff callously talked about “ripping their clients off” as the goal of their work.  With Goldman Sachs receiving additional scrutiny, it seemed an appropriate time to ask “Who’s Winning the Goldman Sachs Primary” in the 2012 Massachusetts Senate race.

The finding was that Republican Scott Brown was “winning” the Goldman Sachs primary in a landslide – referring to the amount of money taken in from Goldman Sachs’ PAC and personnel in political contributions – by a margin of $55,550 for Brown to $0 for Democrat Elizabeth Warren.  (Brown’s haul from Goldman Sachs has since grown to $73,900 as a federal candidate.)

[Cross-posted from the ProgressMass blog.  Like ProgressMass on Facebook and follow on Twitter.]

Republican Scott Brown has been appropriately criticized for his harmful vote to double the student loan interest rate, making a college education even more expensive at a time when household budgets are already stretched beyond the breaking point.  There have been a lot of negative headlines recently for Brown.  He sure could use a positive headline, especially on the issue of the student loan interest rate.

Whatever could he do?  Well, when in need, just make one up!

It’s starting to look that way.  Globe:

Donors from big banks are betting on Mitt Romney to defeat President Obama and repeal new restraints on risky, large-scale investments….

The top five donor groups in Romney’s campaign are individuals and political action committees associated with large financial institutions, led by Wall Street giants Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, according to information compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group that tracks campaign donations.

By contrast, Obama’s top five contributor groups include individuals and PACs affiliated with high technology giants Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp., and the global law firms DLA Piper and Sidley Austin, and do not include those associated with banks. In 2008, financial institutions backed him generously….

Records show that the securities and investment industry has given nearly $20 million to Restore Our Future, the independent super PAC associated with Romney, while it has contributed less than $200,000 to Priorities USA Action, the super PAC associated with Obama.

So that’s the presidential race.  And locally, Elizabeth Warren is amping up the Wall Street theme, releasing both radio and TV ads this week.  Here they are:

Relatedly, Scott Brown has been taking a bit of heat over his mysterious “New York City finance committee,” which threw him a big-dollar fundraiser recently. His campaign won’t reveal the names of these shadowy characters, and specifically, won’t say whether anyone from the winner of the Most Embarrassing Big Bank of the Month award, JPMorgan Chase, serves on it – although campaign finance records show that Brown has pulled in at least $50,000 from JP Morgan, and that’s just what’s been reported so far. Here’s some amusing commentary, from Mike Deehan’s MASSter list:

Democrats want Scott Brown to give back any money raised with the help of nasty old JP Morgan bankers. Chill out Democrats, it’s JP Morgan. Just give them a couple weeks and they’ll lose it all anyway.

Heh.

As it turns out, it’s really fine that MA didn’t try to meet Rhode Island’s $75 million loan package to Curt Schilling’s video game company, which is now in deep trouble.

As part of the RI Economic Development Corporation’s effort to create jobs in the state, they offered 38 Studios a $75 million loan, if only they would pack up operations and bring them to Rhode Island. Schilling and co. moved to Providence, and pledged to employ 450 locals. It was a gamble for the state, which only had $125 million for the entire job creation program, and took criticism at the time.

It’s 2012, and 38 Studios is in trouble. They’ve only employed 288 Rhode Islanders so far, and the company recently had to pull out of next month’s E3 showcase because their upcoming game, paid for by the loan, isn’t close to being ready. An independent audit expressed “substantial doubt” about whether the company can remain solvent, and state officials have been meeting with 38 Studios in recent days.

The worst case scenario? 38 Studios goes under, and is unable to repay the loan. If that happens, taxpayers are on the hook for $112.6 million after interest is factored in.

Ugh.  But here is the worst part, which smells an awful lot like “SEC investigation” to me…

Last year Schilling told Reuters that he had invested “$30 million to $35 million” in 38 Studios. [Similarly, this Globe story reports that as of 7/8/11 he claimed to have invested $20 million. -ed.] A disclosure filing obtained by WPRI shows that Schilling advanced the company $4 million of his own money, and has already been paid back—with funds from the Rhode Island loan.

Yikes. UPDATE: Upon further review, I think it’s possible that the author I quoted above misread the WPRI report.  Here’s what WPRI actually said about Schilling paying himself back:

In July 2010, the same month the EDC approved the loan guarantee, 38 Studios established a revolving line of credit with Schilling so it could borrow up to $4 million from him, according to the disclosure filing obtained by WPRI.com. Part of the taxpayer-guaranteed loan money was used to pay Schilling back.

Still on the sleazy side, but not inconsistent with Schilling having made a larger initial investment outside of the revolving line of credit.

As parents, teachers, and community members, we are Massachusetts grassroots activists for education. We read bills, testify at hearings, write letters to the editor, pore over budgets, speak at town meetings, make phone calls, and hold fundraisers. Many of us have done so for years.

It was as part of this work and with great hope that we joined Stand for Children.  And—initially—Stand helped us do great work.  We cast a critical eye on education bills at the State House and testified as needed. We turned back ballot initiatives that would have gutted education funding. We closely watched local budgets to keep dollars close to classrooms. We put our voices, time, money, and reputations into building Stand for Children. Because we were united and we spoke from our experience, we were heard.

Along the way, we learned a great deal about the legislative process, education funding, and policy. We learned to research our positions, present them, and back them up.

But in 2009, while we struggled to give voice to the needs of our schools, Stand’s staff was turning away from our concerns, announcing that it expected its members to forgo community advocacy in favor of a new, special agenda. This agenda, emerging seemingly out of nowhere, touted more charter schools, more testing, and punishing teachers and schools for low student scores.