Archive for June, 2010

Q: How do we know that this Boston Globe article showing Scott Brown is the most popular pol in Massachusetts is true?

The ads keep coming more than two years before he stands for election because something has to be done to change the tone in the state or dramatic change might come.

Meanwhile Brown has come out against the financial bill:

“I said right from the beginning, I’ll let my statements speak for themselves,” said Senator Brown. “I was disappointed and surprised that at the last minute, they put in assessment fees, taxes…really without letting us know, and I’ve always made it clear that I can’t support adding another $19 billion passed through taxes to individual consumers, especially in the middle of a two year recession.”

Gateway also notes that he has come out against Cap and Trade too. this will of course lead to more ads portraying him has pro Wall Street, Pro Big Oil against small kittens etc etc etc… but SISU notes that this is what the people want.

Scott Brown “has listened to his constituents,” an aide in our junior Senator’s office just told us, and will definitely vote “no” on the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform bill should it come to the floor.

This was the same thing mentioned at yesterday’s Twin City Tea Party Meeting, a member who called urging opposition to the bill was told that there was an overwhelming response from voters against both bills.

As this memeorandum thread shows where Brown leads others are following:

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) joined Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) this evening, putting herself back into the undecided column on Wall Street reform legislation, after House and Senate negotiators added new fees on banks to the final bill late last week.

“It was not part of either the House or Senate bill and was added in the wee hours of the morning. So I’m taking a look at the specifics of that and other provisions as well,” Collins told reporters this evening outside the Senate chamber.

The times they are a changin!

Answer: About 100 pages

Posted: June 29, 2010 by datechguy in employment, personal
Tags: , ,

Q: What is the difference between going to the unemployment office on Monday vs Tuesday?

I always bring a book to the unemployment office. When I went there last Monday I was able to finish The Long Way Home. Today I had some issues to resolve so I had to go down and low and behold I wasn’t able to finish Nomad. I hope to finish it later this week.

The Twin city tea party had its monthly meeting at the Border Grille and Bar yesterday. That in itself isn’t big news.

What WAS big news is that it included a candidates forum and two sitting DEMOCRATIC members of the General Court attended.

Jennifer Flanagan
(Sen 4th Worcester district) and Jen Benson (Rep 37th Middlesex District) along with their opponents Neal Heeren (4th Worcester Senate) and Kurt Hayes (37th Middlesex) showed up and took audience questions and stayed to talk to the people at intermission!

The significance of this can’t be overestimated. For over a year the media has been painting tea party members as wild eyed extremists. Congressmen and women have avoided town hall meetings in fear of encountering them and now sitting democratic members of the General Court attend events.

Both Jens deserve a lot of credit for doing so, it shows a respect for the people who will be voting in this election, but more importantly it shows that they are smart enough to realize that pretending a portion of the electorate must be ignored is a losing policy. Rather than giving the floor to their opponents they engaged the tea party members as voters to be persuaded.

Did they win any votes? I don’t know but I think both were impressive and helped themselves. Just as it is hard to stereotype the tea party when you actually interact with them it is hard to do the same with candidates who take the time to talk to you.

Incidentally I’ll have video uploaded and posted later in the day.

Is this an anomaly or is this the shape of things to come? Well as goes Massachusetts…

Update: Instalanche! Thanks Glenn, welcome all take a peek around. Find out why Foster Kamer is Vizzini, why the Iranians are just cowardly bullies, check out my cynical look at Church Closings and Dave Weigel and of course my Amazon reviews.

Update 2: This is actually the Second bi-partisian event held by the Twin City Tea Party. The First was on Flag Day and included the mayor of Leominster. The evidence of change in drawing local pols is evidenced by this video:

When local pols in the most liberal state in the nation feel comfortable being seen at tea party events the worm has turned. I think tea parties nationwide should take a good hard look at what the Twin City Tea Party group is doing and copy it.

Update 3: Here is the video of Flanagan and Heeren

Update 4: And here is the video of Benson and Hayes.

My latest examiner column No Party at the Washington Post for Dave Weigel is now available. A quick quote:

One could say that there is a lesson here for the Post and journalists but I think the real lesson is for conservatives in general and the tea party in particular. The mainstream media is not and never will be your friend. Until and unless the MSM print, paper or net are willing to hire people who we know are not hostile to us we should not give and they should not expect our cooperation.

Considering that he has now been hired by MSNBC it looks like this advice is pretty good.

As always you can find the archive of my examiner columns here.