As Janis Joplin wailed, “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.” One look at the unchained president and his similarly unshackled good pal, the Massachusetts governor, and you’d have to say there is truth in song. A throw-away line by Gov. Deval Patrick, when he introduced Steve Tompkins to replace new Public Safety […]
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Posted inPolitics, The Download
Can the Mass GOP get their act together?
The Massachusetts Republican brand suffered more catastrophic damage, if that was possible, when Scott Brown and Richard Tisei, the party’s two leading lights, went down for the count in November. In the aftermath, however, rather than concentrate on contesting John Kerry’s US Senate seat, the state GOP has decided that the way forward is some […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Gubernatorial free-for-all fully underway
Inertia consumes the bulk of Massachusetts’s political power structure. Democrats dominate the Legislature, which is one of the country’s least competitive. The party doesn’t have to sweat to stuff pols into virtual lifetime jobs in constitutional offices that normally open up only upon retirement, or a shot at the corner office. But for all the […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Economy, Politics, The Download
Ortiz’s discretionary call
Six months later the Globe selected Ortiz as its Bostonian of the Year. The newspaper’s magazine said Ortiz, Boston’s first female and first Hispanic US attorney, “has sent an unambiguous message to the Massachusetts political class to behave, ramped up prosecutions of white-collar crime, and built a new civil rights enforcement team.” The article made […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Politics, The Download, Transportation
The language of guns
When President Obama unveiled his gun reform package yesterday, one month after the Newtown massacre, there was a commonly used phrase that wasn’t uttered by him or Vice President Joe Biden. Same with Gov. Deval Patrick, who also unveiled his measures yesterday. The term that was missing was “gun control” and you can bet as […]
Posted inEconomy, State House News Service, The Download
Taxing questions for Patrick, Legislature
When a young person once complained about taxes to Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, the Bostonian replied, “I like to pay taxes. With them I buy civilization.” Holmes’s rejoinder seems almost quaint today. Since the tax revolt of the 1980s led by Ronald Reagan and conservative activists like Grover Norquist, Americans have become decidedly […]
Posted inEconomy, The Download
Casino deadline
The casino competition in Massachusetts gets real today. Would-be developers have until 5 pm Tuesday to apply for a casino license and submit a non-refundable $400,000 deposit. The deadline, which comes nearly a year after Massachusetts legalized casino gambling, marks the end of an extended period of quiet wrangling, maneuvering, lobbying and posturing, and the […]
Posted inThe Download, Uncategorized
www.aaronswartz.rip
Internet activist Aaron Swartz’s suicide on Friday has prompted a wave of heartfelt eulogies, commentary — and criticism of his prosecution by US Attorney Carmen Ortiz on charges related to illegally downloading millions of academic papers. Swartz, 26, was a computer prodigy, helping at age 14 to develop RSS, the widely-used Internet tool that lets […]
Posted inThe Download, Uncategorized
Gateway Cities investment proposed
The think tank MassINC called on the state of Massachusetts to invest $1.7 billion over 10 years to help revitalize some of the state’s Gateway Cities. The investment amounts to roughly $1,000 for every resident of the 24 municipalities. A report issued by the Boston-based think tank (which also publishes CommonWealth) said the state’s investment […]
Posted inThe Download, Uncategorized
Hall pass
Another election, another controversy, though this one may not have the same impact as the presidential race or even the special Senate election. But the results of the Baseball Hall of Fame voting will certainly generate as much discussion as either of those votes. For the first time since 1996 and only the eighth time […]