Reality-based commentary on politics.
Merrick Garland announced today that he is appointing a “Special Counsel”.
He’s decided to run out the clock rather than fight to save the rule of law. Two years after widespread evidence of a long list of crimes, Mr. Garland chooses to do nothing.
The rule of law in America is dead.
For perhaps the last time, here is the traditional election day open thread.
I invite you to share whatever you like about your vote and polling place.
I’m particularly interested in our collective response to the ballot questions.
Hello friends —
Last call.
Sadly, for those who are remaining on this site, I am taking the site down on December 6, 2022. That is the day that the LLC that gives me some legal protections is dissolved by the Secretary of State; the cost of keeping the LLC ($525/year) for a mostly-moribund site is prohibitive for me right now. It’s a shame that the archive of content will come down; it’s an illuminating history of an era. But such is the way of things; most state-level political blogs of our vintage have vanished. I’ll keep a copy of the archive, of course.
I hope that our readers and participants have long since found satisfactory outlets for their political thoughts and activities. It seems that what constitutes “political activity” will be radically re-shaped in the next 24 months, in any event. All best of luck and good courage to all.
It wouldn’t be BMG without a primary day open thread so I figured I would start. One of my favorite political websites has taken a nothing-to-see-here attitude, but there are other contested races. For the statewide races my votes were for Chang-Diaz, Gouveia, Galvin, Palfrey, and DiZoglio. I’m also supporting Tara Hong’s primary challenge to my State Representative and helping my friend Eunice Zeigler in her race to succeed Diana DiZoglio in the Senate. I invite others to weigh in with their preferences, predictions, and observations.
I support candidates first based on what they do or will do.
Who they are comes after.
What Eric has accomplished as state senator is nothing short of amazing. You can look up his record on Wikipedia or his website. Those sources, however, can’t tell you what kind of person Eric is.
I think I can.
Eric was literally a kid when I first met him. He was a high school debater for Longmeadow when I was president of the high school debate league. My East Longmeadow team shared a bus with them. I got to know him talking about school and politics on the bus.
One day, I was reviewing judges’ ballots when Eric and his debate partner Amos came to see me in the judges’ room. Debate judges varied in quality. Some actually understood the stock issues of debate. Others qualified because they had a pulse. Eric and Amos had one of the pulse judges and were handed a loss to a team that had no idea what it was doing.
As a senior, Eric Lesser and his partner won the Connecticut Valley Debate League championship. (Left to Right, Amos Shemesh, Mark Bail, and Eric Lesser)
They told me the story. I looked at the ballot. I knew it was a bad beat. What I still remember was Eric’s gratefulness. They had reason to be angry. Other kids would have lost it. I remember the parent of one irate debater threatening to tell Dan York, a local talk show host, about the unfairness of a debate lost. Eric was thankful that I looked at their ballot, confirmed that they were right, and had been unjustly dealt a loss. Eric excelled at debate, but even then, he stuck out for his appreciation of the situation.
I followed Eric’s post-high school career in the Springfield Republican. He famously joined the Obama campaign, managed the luggage for a dozen people on dozens of airplane flights. (He never lost a bag). He graduated from the campaign to the White House and worked for the President’s advisor David Axelrod and on the Council of Economic Advisors. Read More…
Our own Tommy Vitolo (stomv) was a long time climate activist, systems engineer, and wonk blogger right here at BMG before he got into the state house. Since that time he has accumulated a lot of legislative accomplishments on housing, climate, and LGBT issues by working with House leadership and his more moderate colleagues to get things done. This seems to me to be the mark of a reality based approach to progressive lawmaking.
That record of pragmatic progressivism has apparently invited a primary challenge to his left from Raul Fernandez who, like Tommy, is a Brookline selectman and fellow policy wonk (in this case education policy at my graduate alma mater BU Wheelock). This is the rare primary where I happen to know and like both candidates on a personal level, so by no means is this post a dig against Fernandez. I just question the wisdom, timing, and target of his primary challenge.
To Raul’s credit his critique is mostly substantive and wonky hitting Tommy for specific votes around improving transparency on Beacon Hill. I’ve long been on the record here bemoaning our lax rate of permanent incumbency and uncompetitive elections for the legislature. I’ve even been critical of Tommy for votes I disagreed with him on including voting for DeLeo’s last re-election, yet these are not the disqualifying votes begging for a primary challenger Raul makes them out to be. Particularly one as well financed and staffed as Raul’s.
Tommy does not have a 100% rating from Progressive Mass, which is apparently the main reason the organization is backing this primary which has attracted a lot of outside funding and campaign energy that could be better spent on the Fair Share amendment, protecting undocumented immigrants, and electing a Democrat to the Corner Office. There are also critical elections for Suffolk DA, Auditor, Attorney General, and Lieutenant Governor. Not to mention critical competitive congressional elections in NH, CT, and RI. Any of these efforts would be a better use of time.
At a time when outright anti-democracy candidates are on the ballot in neighboring states and avowed election deniers will win the Republican nominations for constitutional offices in our own state, I question the wisdom of targeting a reliable progressive just because he voted for Ron Mariano. Using that logic previous PM endorsed candidates like Mike Connolly should also be challenged by the organization.
If anything this primary gives truth to the reality that too many progressives cluster in the blue bubbles even within our own state. My own state representative in purple Wakefield is a relatively conservative Republican who is not even getting opposed. His office has yet to get back to me with his abortion stance, although I know from digging he voted against the Roe Act multiple times. I have no idea if PM has even bothered trying to create chapters in districts that routinely send conservative Democrats or Republicans to the statehouse, but this seems like an effort where we are eating one of our own. No offense to PM organizers who are doing important work I largely no longer have time to do, and no offense to Raul Fernandez who is a dedicated educator and activist who should be in the statehouse, but this primary seems really dumb.
Hello friends -- Last call. Sadly, for those who are remaining on this site, I am taking the site down on December 6, 2022. That is the day that the LLC that gives me some legal protections is dissolved by the Secretary of State; the … [Read more...]
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