Blue Mass Group

Scott Brown filed paperwork yesterday with the FEC (and 12/4 with the Senate) declaring himself a 2014 Candidate for the U.S. Senate. Might just be procedural for him to keep raising money towards a special, but it looks pretty official regardless.   Full PDF here

I wanted to share a video from Congressman Bill Keating’s campaign talking about the support our campaign is picking up on the South Coast. Check out the video to hear from leading figures in labor, fishing, and Democratic politics on why they support Bill Keating. In the interest of full disclosure I’m excited to let my BMG friends know that I am now the Field Director on Congressman Keating’s campaign. It’s a great honor and I look forward to working to re-elect Bill Keating… Unfortunately I don’t have as much time to post here, but I’m still reading. Oh, and by the way… If you’d like to volunteer to help re-elect Rep. Keating, I’d love to work with you!

There’s lots of debate on Beacon Hill about the EBT card cash benefit – I think there are valid concerns about using money for non-necessities, but I’m not sure if all recipients deserve to be punished for it. In reading an article from the Sentinel and Enterprise last night, something caught my eye: Rep. Richard Bastien, R-Gardner, said he would like EBT card users to have some access tocash in case of emergencies, but said he had personally seen examples of benefits being used on luxury items. “When I worked in retail management, I had people use their EBT cards for payment on flat-screen TVs,” he said. “When they’re being used on purchases like that, we need to put some parameters in place to prevent that from happening.” What Rep. Bastien failed to mention is where he was working in retail management. According to his Facebook page he worked in retail management at  McDonald’s, Auto Zone, Advance Auto Parts and Rent-a-Center. Looking at that list I’m guessing he was selling flat-screen TVs at Rent-a-Center. Sen. Chuck Schumer made a big stink about Rent-a-Center’s business practices a few years back and used a 37 inch flat screen TV as an example: Schumer’s staff found [...]

On April 3, 2006 the Massachusetts House of Representatives passed “An Act Providing Access to Affordable, Quality Accountable Healthcare” by a 155-2 vote. The two State Representatives who voted against this legislation will no doubt go down in history as the two biggest hypocrites in the history of the Massachusetts GOP Caucus, and it’s not because they continued to take advantage of a generous taxpayer-funded health care plan after voting against affordable healthcare for their constituents. The first hypocrite is Jeff Perry of Sandwich. Rep. Perry spent his career decrying government waste. He even took the time in his farewell speech in 2011 to take a jab at public employees. Perry went on to take a $110,000/year job as Barnstable County Special Sheriff, a position that had been vacant for two years. But you knew that. The second hypocrite you might not know – meet Rep. Daniel K. Webster. Much like Perry, Webster is a far-right wing Republican who aligns with Brian Camenker on social issues. He currently represents Duxbury, Halifax, Hanson, and Pembroke in the House of Representatives. I’d mention which town he resides in, but he moves around so much that I’m not exactly sure. Like many members of [...]

Howie Carr’s column today, titled “Kennedys’ profit near $1m at nonprofit”, goes after Joe Kennedy Jr.’s salary from non-profit Citizen’s Energy Corp. The thing is, Kennedy made the vast majority of his money from for-profit affiliated organizations. Howie even acknowledges this in his column. Now, much of that Kennedy swag came from Citizens Energy’s profit-making arms, but still, it does have to file as a nonprofit. This comment demonstrates one thing: complete intellectual dishonesty. Carr acknowledges that most of the money came from a for-profit yet spends the entire column going after Kennedy and his wife for taking money from a non-profit. It’s just not true – they’re not hauling in a million bucks from the non-profit. Carr knows this and should never have given his column a headline implying that. Joe Kennedy’s compensation breakdown per 2010 Form PC – Click to enlarge The 2010 Form PC - available at the Attorney General’s website and excerpted above – shows the breakdown of Kennedy’s compensation. He makes $74,930 in salary and $8,265 in benefits at the non-profit Citizens Energy Corp. Why didn’t Howie report that? Because it’s not juicy enough. He had to report the whole number – including the $250,209 salary, $350,000 bonus, and $24,794 in benefits that Kennedy [...]

In the Spring of 2010 I made a decision to support Bill Keating in his run to represent the 10th Congressional District. It was a hard decision to make with Rob O’Leary in the race. They are both exceptional legislative leaders who have done so much for Massachusetts. I stuck with Keating, volunteered for him over the summer and was later offered a job with the campaign after the primary. It was a great experience and I met a lot of fantastic people, but after the election I went back to my job at an accounting firm and have been doing taxes and crunching numbers since. I believed in Bill Keating in 2010, and I believe in Bill Keating today. While redistricting has removed my home in Scituate from his district, I still wholeheartedly believe that we need Bill Keating in Congress. After the primary in 2010, Keating and O’Leary supporters came together in a united front to defeat Jeff Perry and send Bill Keating to Congress. We knocked doors every weekend and made phone calls every night. Like so many others across the state, we showed up in force on Election Day and really got the vote out.  We even [...]

Scott Brown launched his revamped website today. It’s very well done as you’d expect for a candidate with millions in the bank. I found something to be very interesting – the Scott Brown Timeline featured on the homepage.It contains events referred to as “the highlights of Scott’s life and career.” It has the following events with a blurb about each: 1959: Scott Brown Born 1977: Graduates High School 1979: Joins Mass Army National Guard 1981: Graduates Tufts 1982: Wins centerfold contest 1986: Marries Gail Huff 1988: Ayla Brown born 1990: Arianna Brown born 1995: Scott takes up duathlons and triathlons 2004: Elected to state senate 2010: Elected to US Senate 2010: Sworn in to US Senate 2010 – Present: US Senator Since this is a list of life and career accomplishments I think it’s safe to say that Scott Brown is now and plans to continue being a “career politician”… No accomplishments to highlight from his time in private practice? Only a centerfold and a few elections? Is it just me or does it seem strange that Brown’s campaign is highlighting his winning of a centerfold contest as a highlight of his life? They even took the time to post the letter Brown [...]

Remember Tom Weaver and Ralph Zazula? Tom lost a primary for Congress and joined up with Ralph to start “Show ID to Vote” which is focused on demanding IDs at the polls – regardless of whether or not its the law. Rachel Maddow picked up the BMG post on it and ran a story a few months ago. Secretary of the Commonwealth Bill Galvin found the sign to be illegal and the Department of Justice was contacted. To quickly summarize, Weaver and Zazula set up the sign above inside a New Bedford polling location with big letters saying “SHOW ID TO VOTE”… But it’s not the law. Show ID to Vote is a voter suppression group, pure and simple. Well, here they are again: Image adapted from MassLive.com. Click Here for original.

If you haven’t heard, Barney Frank’s 2010 Republican Challenger Sean Bielat is back from Pennsylvania to run for Congress. The 2010 race got tense at points and Bielat and Frank didn’t seem to care for each other too much. You probably remember Congressman Frank’s victory speech after winning by 11%. Maybe you remember that Bielat never conceded to Frank. Bielat was able to raise money and be a credible, competitive candidate for one reason: He was running against Barney Frank. He raised money by making  the stupid videos and convincing the right wing media/blogosphere that he could win. The race got a lot of attention and a lot of money and, just as spectators not caught up with Bielat Fever expected, he lost big.

I love my membership in the Plymouth Rock / Cape Cod & the Islands Tea Party group on Facebook. Where else would I get my information about the UN taking over Carver? Recently a nice little message appeared in my inbox. It was from Ralph Zazula, half of the crack team at Show ID to Vote, the voter intimidation group based in Massachusetts. You might remember their stunt in New Bedford when they set up shop inside the polls with a big “Show ID to Vote” sign. We covered it on BMG and then Maddow picked it up. A few months ago the effort to get a question on the ballot that would force voters to show identification at the polls hit a roadblock when Attorney General Martha Coakley blocked the ballot question based on a lack of provisions for voters who cannot afford an ID. AG Coakley found this to be a poll tax. Oliver Kozlowski, a Mansfield Selectman, was behind the ballot question. He began a court challenge to the AG’s decision and instructed his supporters to continue collecting signatures. That didn’t go so well. Seems that the lack of support for voter disenfranchisement was a hurdle that couldn’t [...]