Tag Archives: massachusetts

These 3 Gay Republicans Are Running for Congress

by KristiaDunkel Posted on September 9, 2014

Mother Jones

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In late March, Richard Tisei, a Republican candidate for Congress in Massachusetts, took an unusual step for a politician in a close race: He boycotted his own party’s convention.

The state GOP had added language to its platform opposing same-sex marriage, which has been legal in Massachusetts for a decade. The party’s decision put Tisei in a tricky spot: He’s a married, openly gay man. “I thought it was important for somebody to stand up and say the party is heading in the wrong direction,” Tisei told Mother Jones. “At a time when progress is being made, it wasn’t a good idea for Massachusetts to take a step backwards.”

Tisei, a former state senator, is one of three openly gay Republicans challenging incumbent US House members this year. He’s running unopposed in Tuesday’s GOP primary in Massachusetts’ 6th District. Dan Innis, a former dean of the business school at the University of New Hampshire, is running in New Hampshire’s 1st District; his primary is also Tuesday. And Carl DeMaio, a former member of the San Diego city council, won the Republican primary in California’s 52nd District in June.

Each of the three challengers has a decent chance of becoming the first openly gay Republican to be elected to Congress. The nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report ranks DeMaio’s race against freshman Democrat Scott Peters as a “pure toss-up.” Innis’ race, against Dem Carol Shea Porter, is listed as “toss-up/tilt Democrat.” So is Tisei’s race—although Tisei’s chances could fall Tuesday if his presumptive opponent, scandal-plagued incumbent John Tierney, loses in the Democratic primary.

There are currently just six LGBT members of the House—all Democrats. Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat who was elected in 2012, is the first and, so far, only openly gay senator. Arizona Rep. Jim Kolbe—who came out after he’d initially been elected—was the last out GOP member of Congress, but decided not to seek reelection in 2006. “Opinions do evolve,” Tisei says. “What I could do is be a catalyst to help bring about a change within the Republican caucus. Sure, it isn’t going to happen over night, but when you’re working with somebody closely on tax reform or economic issues and you get to know people as colleagues, it changes the dynamic in a lot of ways. Having a gay member of the caucus will open people’s eyes and change their perceptions, and hopefully change their minds on a lot of the issues.”

The three men are the first federal candidates—Democrat or Republican—to feature their same-sex spouses in campaign ads and literature. The Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, a nonpartisan group that boosts openly gay candidates for office, has endorsed Innis and Tisei. Two endorsements for Republicans seeking federal office marks a new record in the organization’s 23-year history, says Jason Burns, the Victory Fund’s political director. (DeMaio hasn’t applied for the group’s endorsement this cycle, but they turned him down when he ran for mayor in 2012 and he has a shaky history with other LGBT groups.)

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These 3 Gay Republicans Are Running for Congress

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Charges Dropped Against Climate Activists

by Myrna Posted on September 8, 2014

A Massachusetts district attorney said he shared two defendants’ concern about the hazards of climate change. Read more –  Charges Dropped Against Climate Activists ; ; ;

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Charges Dropped Against Climate Activists

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Meet the Risky Mortgage Pioneer Trying to Pay His Buddy’s Way Into Congress

by SoilaEllsworth Posted on September 2, 2014

Mother Jones

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If New Hampshire Republican Dan Innis wins his congressional race, he knows where to send the fruit basket: to the home of mortgage giant Peter T. Paul.

Before running for Congress, Innis served as dean of the University of New Hampshire’s business school, which was renamed for Paul after he donated $25 million. His campaign website touts major building projects he oversaw as dean—projects financed by Paul’s contribution. And Innis’ congressional run is getting a big-time boost from a brand new super-PAC founded and financed by Paul.

“Dan’s a friend,” says Paul, who lives in California. Paul is an alumnus of the University of New Hampshire, and he met Innis through his UNH philanthropy. “He’s the better candidate. He needs to get known.”

Innis, who is one of four candidates running in the Republican primary on September 9 to challenge Democratic Rep. Carol Shea Porter, is socially liberal and favors shrinking the government—exactly the type of politician Paul says he would like to see in Congress. In order to make that happen, Paul created a super-PAC, New Hampshire Priorities PAC, and financed it with $562,000. So far, $376,000 of that has gone into radio and TV ads supporting his friend. Innis himself has raised a little more than $338,000—about $150,000 less than his closest Republican opponent. With Paul in the mix, Innis is head and shoulders over his GOP competitors.

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Meet the Risky Mortgage Pioneer Trying to Pay His Buddy’s Way Into Congress

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The St. Louis Area Has a Long History of Shameful Racial Violence

by BobbyLomas Posted on August 18, 2014

Mother Jones

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A mob blocks a street car during the East St. Louis Riot of July 1917 University of Massachusetts-Amherst Libraries

The shooting of Michael Brown in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, Missouri, and the subsequent riots, protests, and police crackdown have highlighted the area’s long history of racial strife. One chapter from that history, a century-old summer riot just fourteen miles away from Ferguson, in East St. Louis, Illinois, shows how black Americans were subjected to racial violence from the moment they arrived in the region.

In 1917, East St. Louis was crowded with factories. Jobs were abundant. But as World War I halted the flow of immigration from Eastern Europe, factory recruiters started looking toward the American South for black workers. Thousands came, and as competition for jobs increased, a labor issue became a racial one.

East St. Louis’ angry white workers found sympathy from the leaders of the local Democratic party, who feared that the influx of black, mostly Republican voters threatened their electoral dominance. In one particularly striking parallel to today’s political landscape, local newspapers warned of voter fraud, alleging that black voters were moving between northern cities to swing local elections as part of a far-reaching conspiracy called “colonization,” according to the documentary series Living in St. Louis.

A cartoon from the time of the riot, lambasting then-president Woodrow Wilson for making the world “safe for democracy” while ignoring the plight of East St. Louis. Wikipedia

That May, a local aluminum plant brought in black workers to replace striking white ones. Soon, crowds of whites gathered downtown, at first protesting the migration, then beating blacks and destroying property. On July 1, a group of white men drove through a black neighborhood, firing a gun out their car window. (The perpetrators were never caught.) A few hours later, another car drove through the neighborhood. Black residents fired at it, killing two police officers.

On July 2, as news of the killings got out, white residents went tearing through black neighborhoods, beating and killing blacks and burning some 300 houses as National Guard troops either failed to respond or fled the scene. The official toll counted 39 black and eight white people dead, but others speculated that more than a hundred people died in what is still considered one of the worst incidents of racial violence in twentieth-century America. Afraid for their lives, more than six thousand blacks left the city after the riot.

That the United States was then fighting in Europe to defend democracy while failing to protect its own citizens was not lost on Marcus Garvey, soon to become one of the most famous civil rights leaders of his time: “This is no time for fine words, but a time to lift one’s voice against the savagery of a people who claim to be the dispensers of democracy,” he said to cheers at a speech in Harlem on July 8. “I do not know what special meaning the people who slaughtered the Negroes of East St. Louis have for democracy… but I do know that it has no meaning for me.”

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The St. Louis Area Has a Long History of Shameful Racial Violence

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Here’s Why Wall Street Reform Is Still in Limbo

by MaximilKhu Posted on July 21, 2014

Mother Jones

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Four years ago today, with a who’s who of congressional Democrats standing over his shoulder, President Barack Obama signed into law the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, hailing it as the answer to preventing future financial meltdowns. “For years,” the president said at the signing ceremony, “our financial sector was governed by antiquated and poorly enforced rules that allowed some to game the system and take risks that endangered the entire economy.”

But, years later, much of Dodd-Frank has not been implemented and the risks to the economy remain. According to law firm Davis Polk, which has been tracking the law, just 52 percent of the rules mandated by Dodd-Frank have been finalized by federal regulators. Another 23 percent have been proposed but not yet ironed out, and regulators haven’t even gotten around to crafting 96 required rules—24 percent of the total bill.

Much of Dodd-Frank remains to be implemented Davis Polk

Former Massachusetts congressman Barney Frank, co-author of the law, isn’t too concerned with the slow rollout. “Not all rules are equal, in the first place,” he said. “In fact, the rules are being steadily approved. And it’s also the case that the financial institutions are abiding by some of those rules in principle even before they’re adopted, because if you’re a large financial institution you’re not going to try to take advantage of a little bit of a delay and then have to stop things when it happens.”

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Here’s Why Wall Street Reform Is Still in Limbo

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Watch: Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick’s Emotional Speech on Child Migrants

by RuthieMoeller Posted on July 21, 2014

Mother Jones

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70,000 Kids Will Show Up Alone at Our Border This Year. What Happens to Them?


Map: These Are the Places Central American Child Migrants Are Fleeing


Why Our Immigration Courts Can’t Handle the Child Migrant Crisis


Are the Kids Showing Up at the Border Really Refugees?


Child Migrants Have Been Coming to America Alone Since Ellis Island

See MoJo‘s full coverage of the surge of unaccompanied child migrants from Central America.

On Friday, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick announced a plan for his state to temporarily shelter up to 1,000 unaccompanied children who have recently fled to the United States as part of the ongoing border crisis. He cited America’s history of giving “sanctuary to desperate children for centuries,” the “blight on our national reputation” when we refused to accept Jewish children fleeing the Nazis in 1939, and his Christian faith as reasons for the decision. “My faith teaches,” he said, fighting back tears, “that if a stranger dwells with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him but rather love him as yourself.” The Joint Base Cape Cod and Westover Air Base are the two facilities being considered as possible locations.

Notably, Patrick has said “maybe” to a 2016 run for president.

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Watch: Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick’s Emotional Speech on Child Migrants

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Opinion: A Pipeline Threatens Our Family Land

by Myrna Posted on July 12, 2014

Gas companies can claim the right of eminent domain to seize private property. See the article here:  Opinion: A Pipeline Threatens Our Family Land ; ;Related ArticlesNew England Confronts Surging Demand for Natural GasNatural Gas Pipeline Plan Creates Rift in MassachusettsEconomic Scene: Blueprints for Taming the Climate Crisis ;

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Opinion: A Pipeline Threatens Our Family Land

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Sorry, Conservatives. The Supreme Court Isn’t Stopping Obama’s Climate Plan.

by MonserrateDeGil Posted on June 23, 2014

Mother Jones

“Supreme Court Limits EPA’s Global Warming Rules.”

“Supreme Court Ruling Backs Most EPA Emission Controls.”

These are just a couple of the many contradictory headlines in response to Monday’s US Supreme Court ruling in Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA, a case filed by industry groups and several states challenging some of the environmental agency’s efforts to restrict greenhouse gas emissions. So what’s going on here?

Despite some applauding headlines from the right—”Supreme Court Hits Obama’s Global Warming Agenda,” claimed the Washington Times—the ruling actually had very little effect. “This is not doing much of anything to hobble EPA,” explains Richard Revesz, director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law, adding: “Nothing that is being done today calls into question the EPA’s ability to regulate power plants, both new and existing, under section 111 of the Clean Air Act.”

The decision, authored by Antonin Scalia, is actually the latest in a series of rulings by the Supreme Court on the ability of the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. The most important of these, 2007’s Massachusetts v. EPA, found that the agency had the authority to regulate these emissions under the Clean Air Act. In 2011, the court went further in American Electric Power v. Connecticut, ruling that states, cities, and other entities could not independently sue greenhouse gas emitters because the Clean Air Act and the EPA “displace” their ability to do so. It’s on the basis of such rulings that President Obama’s EPA has stepped forward to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from a variety of sources, including automobiles, newly constructed power plants, and, most recently, existing or older power plants.

Headlines notwithstanding, those regulatory actions weren’t really at issue in Monday’s decision. Rather, the latest case involved something called the EPA’s Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) program, which issues permits for major new sources of air pollution, or for higher levels of emissions from existing sources. Permitted emitters are required to use the best technology available to mitigate their emissions.

As part of the EPA’s initiatives to combat global warming, the agency had tried to “tailor” this preexisting program, which covered other pollutants, to apply to large greenhouse gas emitters, while simultaneously ruling out smaller emitters like hospitals. Industry groups and some states sued in objection. The Supreme Court ruled that the EPA can’t target emitters based on their greenhouse gases under this program, but the court also said the agency can require major emitters already permitted under the PSD program for other types of emissions to curtail their greenhouse gas emissions, too. And by these lights, the EPA can still regulate 83 percent of all stationary sources of these emissions.

So we certainly shouldn’t be worried that the EPA can’t go forward on regulating greenhouse gases now, explains Sierra Club attorney Pat Gallagher. “There’s a slight ding in their program,” Gallagher says. But as he adds, “you’re still capturing most facilities, like 83 percent of the facilities.”

So, don’t freak out. The EPA is still taking major action on global warming. The latest Supreme Court ruling is no catastrophe. The fact that the court is tweaking such minor details in a sense affirms that the EPA’s broad approach to global warming is on track.

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Sorry, Conservatives. The Supreme Court Isn’t Stopping Obama’s Climate Plan.

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Obamacare Saves Lives, But That’s Not Really Its Big Benefit

by TGEGreggjbxsfx Posted on May 12, 2014

Mother Jones

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Ed Kilgore points me to a recent piece by Harold Pollack that takes a look at the recent study of Romneycare in Massachusetts and tries to extrapolate what it means about Obamacare:

The Massachusetts estimates imply that the ACA will prevent something in the neighborhood of 24,096 deaths every year (simply: 20 million divided by 830). That’s more than twice the number of Americans killed in gun homicides. It’s considerably more than the number of Americans who die from HIV/AIDS.

The Cato Institute’s Michael Cannon rightly notes that these mortality reductions won’t come cheap. My own faux-precise back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that the cost per averted death is about $3.3 million. That seems like a lot of money—and it is. Yet it actually compares favorably in cost-effectiveness with other widely accepted medical, public health, product safety and workplace interventions….And of course this $3.3 million only captures the impact of health reform on reducing mortality rates. It doesn’t count so many other important health, financial and personal benefits of health coverage, from regular preventative care to peace of mind.

I’d very strongly emphasize that last sentence. The effect of Obamacare on mortality is always going to be contentious. The Massachusetts study might be wrong. Medicaid might be less effective than private insurance. And there’s no telling how long these medical interventions delay death. Six months? Six years? More?

But nobody should hang too much on these results. Obviously, preventing death is important, but it’s by no means the primary value of health insurance, especially in the non-elderly population. The primary value is (a) financial and (b) the ability to get routine health care that improves your life even if it doesn’t prolong it. Knee surgery. Hip replacements. Antidepressant prescriptions. Pain management. Diabetes control. And on and on. The vast majority of the non-elderly rarely receive life-saving health care. But so what? Even if health insurance had zero impact on mortality, we’d still want it. It provides us with medical care that makes life more livable and it prevents us from living with the constant fear that we’re one expensive treatment away from bankruptcy. That’s the real benefit of Obamacare. Obsessing about mortality misses the point.

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Obamacare Saves Lives, But That’s Not Really Its Big Benefit

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The Good News on Obamacare Just Keeps Rolling In

by KaraBloomer Posted on April 17, 2014

Mother Jones

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The open enrollment period for Obamacare is finally (almost) over, and today the White House announced the final figures for signups via the exchanges:

8 million people signed up for private insurance in the Health Insurance Marketplace. For states that have Federally-Facilitated Marketplaces, 35 percent of those who signed up are under 35 years old, and 28 percent are between 18 and 34 years old, virtually the same youth percentage that signed up in Massachusetts in its first year of health reform.

That’s a little better than I expected. I was figuring the final number would be around 7.7 million or so. We Americans sure do like to procrastinate, don’t we?

Anyway, once some of these new enrollees drop out for not paying their premiums, the final number will be around 7 million, which matches the CBO’s original estimate—the one they made before the website debacle. That’s pretty amazing. It suggests that either the CBO was overly pessimistic or else that the website problems really didn’t have any effect at all. I suppose the latter is plausible if you assume that hardly anyone was ever going to sign up in the first couple of months anyway.

And the 28 percent number for young enrollees is pretty good too. It’s below the administration’s goal, but Jon Cohn points out that what really matters is whether it matches what insurance companies expected:

The worry has always been that older and sicker people would sign up in unusually high numbers, forcing insurers to raise their prices next year and beyond.

But insurance companies didn’t expect young people to sign up in proportion to their numbers in the population. They knew participation would be a bit lower and they set premiums accordingly. Only company officials know exactly what they were projecting—that’s proprietary information—but one good metric is the signup rate in Massachusetts, in 2007, when that state had open enrollment for its version of the same reforms. According to information provided by Jonathan Gruber, the MIT economist and reform architect, 28.3 percent of Massachusetts enrollees were ages 19 to 34, a comparable age group.

So what were insurance companies expecting? As Cohn says, we don’t know for sure, but there’s good reason to think that it was around 28 percent. First, there’s the Massachusetts precedent. And second, we learned yesterday that insurance companies are now expected to raise premiums a modest 7 percent next year. This suggests that that the age and health profile of exchange enrollees is pretty close to their projections.

All in all, another day of pretty good news for Obamacare.

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The Good News on Obamacare Just Keeps Rolling In

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