There are two things that caught my eye in today’s personal post from Arianna Huffington on HuffingtonPost.com. The first a remembered line that Larry Summers often spoke – “that the important thing is just to be caught trying.” She then goes on to question the seriousness of the Obama economic…
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In the category of “The More Things Change”—While cleaning in the home office last weekend, I found a batch of old news clippings, including one from the Christian Science Monitor of August 3, 2006. In his first big speech, Bush administration Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson listed growing income inequality as one…
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At 1pm today Community Teamwork (CTI) is holding a press conference at Lowell City Hall about the 2011 Fuel Assistance program. This year’s Fuel Assistance starts today – November 1. From the CTI press release: Lowell– As the region struggles to return power and heat to the many families left…
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Michael D Higgins, who will be Ireland’s ninth president. Photograph: Julien Behal/PA The Associated Press (AP) and the Guardian are reporting from Dublin that after the votes were counted – veteran left-wing politician Michael D. Higgins has won Ireland’s presidential election with more than 1 million votes and a nearly…
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Regular reader and sometimes contributor Mike Luciano sent this post about a recent column in our local newspaper: The last time I wrote a critical post about a Peter Lucas column, I told myself I was going to leave the poor guy alone. After all, it’s not his fault that…
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In today’s Washington Post opinion writer Dana Milbank queries: “What was that about a Democratic ‘enthusiasm gap‘?” (harkening back to a WaPo column by colleague Chris Cillizza) Reporting from Springfield, Massachusetts and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union hall when supporter gathered for a meeting – Milbank found enthusiasm abounds.…
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The political world is abuzz about a Herman Cain video ad that features Cain’s campaign manager, standing against a wall, staring into the camera, and talking about the candidate for about 45 seconds. When he stops talking, he takes a drag on a cigarette. The ad already has more than…
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In commentary at huffingtonpost.com this morning, former Vermont governor Madeleine M. Kunin writes about the American-ness of unity and cooperation as opposed to a doctrine of winner-take-all competition that is behind the most mean-spirited attitudes encountered too often these days. Read her thoughts here.
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The announcement today by John Olver that he will not seek re-election to Congress in 2012 should make the imminent task of reducing Massachusetts from ten to nine Congressional seats a bit easier. Indications are that the Joint Legislative Committee on Redistricting will release its proposed redistricting map early in…
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Frequent contributor Jim Peters shares some thoughts on modern politics: I get an awfully lot of email and mail from the Democratic Party of both Massachusetts and Washington, D.C., and just once I would like to open one that says “Thank You for Your Fifty Years of Service and Allegiance…
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