(The Media was so in the bag for Obama, he's actually giving reporters Government Jobs... - promoted by Cool Cal)
Sanjay Gupta as Surgeon General? Is this a joke?
The Obama transition team approached Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent, about becoming U.S. surgeon general, according to sources inside the transition and at CNN.
The Obama administration approached CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta about becoming U.S. surgeon general.
The Obama administration approached CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta about becoming U.S. surgeon general.
Gupta was in Chicago, Illinois, in November to meet with President-elect Barack Obama on the matter, sources said.
(Paging Barbara Anderson...Paging Barbara Anderson... - promoted by garrett3000)
So our esteemed Governor has a new idea; increase taxes. Well, it is not actually new to Deval, rather it is new to where he wants to apply it. Deval Patrick is pushing the state legislature to pass a revised Internet sales tax that would allow the Massachusetts Department of Revenue to collect sales tax from businesses that are not located in Massachusetts, but do business with customers in Massachusetts. Currently the state collects sales tax on only the items sold to Massachusetts residents by Internet retailers that are located in Massachusetts. For instance, an Internet retailer located in California that sells to Massachusetts residents does not currently pay Massachusetts sales tax, but will in the future. Also, Internet retailers that are located in Massachusetts that sell to California residents do not pay a California sales tax on those items. Under the new system they will.
Let's put aside the fact that our own Brad Jones, who once opposed the idea, now seems to like the idea and can't understand how that might be an increase in taxes. Congressman William Delahunt wants to copy the idea and institute it on a national level forcing all Internet retailers to collect all state sales taxes. Ugh! Delahunt states:
"This will protect Massachusetts businesses that are disadvantaged by the current system," Delahunt said. "Small- and medium-sized businesses need this in order to compete with large sellers from out of state" that aren't required to collect and remit sales taxes.
Andrew Breitbart, the former editor of the Drudge Report and current owner of the breitbart.com family of news outlets has started a conservative Hollywood blog. I had read about this late last year and was waiting for it to go live before posting.
The blog can be found at bighollywood.breitbart.com. It will feature conservatives in the arts industry talking about politics and culture. It will feature people using their own name as well as composites for some who are still to timid to come out of the conservative closet so to speak.
So Angelic One it looks like someone was listening.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to re-write House rules today to ensure that the Republican minority is unable to have any influence on legislation. Pelosi's proposals are so draconian, and will so polarize the Capitol, that any thought President-elect Obama has of bipartisan cooperation will be rendered impossible before he even takes office.
Pelosi's rule changes -- which may be voted on today -- will reverse the fairness rules that were written around Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America."
Richardson withdrawal leaves cabinet gap New Mexico governor insists he will be cleared in a grand jury probe
NBC News and news services
updated 8:43 a.m. ET, Mon., Jan. 5, 2009
WASHINGTON - The Cabinet that President-elect Barack Obama picked on a fast track has an unexpected opening, with New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Obama's choice for commerce secretary, withdrawing under pressure of a federal investigation into how his political donors landed a lucrative transportation contract.
Richardson's withdrawal, first reported by NBC News' Andrea Mitchell, was the initial disruption of Obama's Cabinet process and the second "pay-to-play" investigation that has touched Obama's transition to the presidency....
Suffolk clerk postpones Richard Vitale arraignment By Hillary Chabot
Monday, January 5, 2009
A clerk delayed the arraignment of House Speaker Sal DiMasi's former accountant Richard Vitale this morning, and, in a highly unusual move, declined to accept a detailed description of the case.
The description has even more information about the ticket-scalping bill Vitale pushed, and could shed additional light on Speaker DiMasi's involvement only two days before the speaker is up for re-election.
"The safest thing for me to do is not file this because then it will become public record," Clerk Magistrate Gary Wilson said at Suffolk Superior Court this morning....
Arraignment of DiMasi friend delayed Jan 5, 2009
By GLEN JOHNSON, AP...
...Also Monday, DiMasi said he won a victory when the State Ethics Commission agreed last week not to seek some documents from him that DiMasi had argued might be constitutionally protected because they involve legislative speech and debate....
You may remember back in 2006 that Reuters got caught doctoring photographs of the bombing of Beirut. I think the Agency France Presse has just done the same thing with a photograph of Barack Obama disembarking from a plane. I first saw the picture below on the front page of the Drudge Report.
Something about the picture just doesn't seem right to me. First the Air Force would not fly a plane with the seal of the President in the door way, if the President wasn't on board. And, as full of hubris I think Barack Obama is, I don't think he would put the seal on his plane.
Now look at the picture. How did Barack Obama get off the plane without whacking his head on the seal. The seal seems to go completely across the entrance Obama just came out. If the circle was on the wall of the plane inside the plane it would look askew as perspective would make it do so. This image looks to me as if the AFP put the Presidential Seal in the opening with photoshop. Below you'll see a picture of Bill Clinton disembarking from one of the smaller planes in the executive transportation fleet. The door opens outward and the seal is on the bottom right. Is this a bit of editorializing from the AFP?
In his most extensive comments on the subject to date with Blue Mass Group, Governor Deval Patrick defended his pick of Jim
Aloisi by saying he "knows where the bodies are buried". Here's what the the Governor had to say about his favorite grave digger.
One thing that is helpful to me is that he[Aloisi] knows where the bodies are buried. And you know, the sad reality is that we have to dig up a lot of those bodies, and bury them properly. You know, I wish it were more glamorous, but this is an unbelievably complicated thing. I mean, the financing is complicated enough! But you have layered on that all kinds of politics. You know, there are some agencies ... where the nickname is that of their legislative sponsor. And people in communities know that if you want something from that agency, like a job [for a relative] ... There are all kinds of guardians and old relationships, and arrangements that were arrived at to solve some problem that you can't know about unless you were there. All that stuff needs to be unwound and brought into the sunlight. And it is so helpful to have someone who understands all that to be on the team and to be on our side.
Deval Patrick campaigned on opening up government, isn't that exactly what the much ballyhooed "civic engagement" model was? If we are to believe that Governor Patrick truly meant that, I'm assuming he is going to have a Secretary Aloisi write a report detailing where all the bodies are. In the spirit of open government I would expect nothing less of a Patrick administration appointee.
If Aloisi doesn't come clean, I would hope that Martha Coakley would go to the courts to force Aloisi to do so. We know have it on good authority, the Governor, that Jim Aloisi in fact does now things about the Big Dig that we the ordinary taxpayer don't.
(Perhaps they are going with the Who's Who in Massachusetts approach. You know those books that throw you in them so you'll buy it for $150.00. The only people who buy the books are the people in them. See it's nice you're named one of a thousand. Now you owe us $1000 for "promotion" and $5000 for a "historical marker" get it. This could be a great idea. - promoted by EaBo Clipper)
Can you think of 25 great places in Massachusetts? Probably. But how about 1,000?
State lawmakers say it can be done, and they want to establish a commission that would anoint 1,000 attractions across Massachusetts as official "Great Places." Brainstorming has already produced some ideas.
What the heck is going on? I thought we had an economic crisis? I thought we had state senators being arrested. I thought we had problems in the state and we had to tighten up our belt, and we waste time on this crap?
But just as the state budget gets larded up with pork, there would be something for everyone. A thousand is enough to give each of the state's 351 towns nearly three great places. Put another way, there would be one great place in every 10 square miles of the state.
For Fiscal Year '07 (Written in '06) Romney left Deval Patrick $2,335.0 Million on hand. Without any Republican influence the spending raid has been on and fiscal responsibility has gone out the window.
Stabilization Fund Balances (in millions) FY '07: $2,335.0 (Inherited from Romney)
FY '08: $2,123.4 (Official Estimate)
FY '09: $1,867.2 (Official Projection)
In just 2 short years $467,800,000 will be raided. That's over 20%.
For FY '09 State Revenues are projected to increase by $1.357 Billion. That's over 5%
DiMasi loses ally in bid to keep post Reelection vote looms next week
By Matt Viser and Andrea Estes
Globe Staff / December 30, 2008
A top House lawmaker who has flourished under House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi said last night that he would not support DiMasi's bid next week for another two-year term.
Representative David Torrisi, the House chairman of the Committee on Labor and Workforce Development, said he would vote "present" next week, a decision he labored over for months.
"The allegations are serious, and I think it's time for new leadership in the House," Torrisi, a North Andover Democrat, said in an interview. "Quite frankly, I was hoping he would have stepped down by now...
Mass. man gets marijuana fine, has bigger problems
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) A Holyoke man was at least one of the first people fined under a new state law that decriminalizes marijuana.
But Jose Burgos has bigger problems.
Police said they found the 29-year-old Burgos with less than a half gram of marijuana on him Friday, so he was fined $100 under a new law that went in effect that day. Those found with less than an ounce of marijuana are now subject to civil citation, rather than arrest.
But police say they also found 119 crack cocaine rocks and 45 heroin bags in Burgos's car after stopping him at about 12:30 p.m....
Campaign war chests allow local lawmakers to be big spenders Finance reports reveal money spent on meals, flowers, limos Crystal Bozek
cbozek@eagletribune.com
BOSTON - No one ran against Methuen state Sen. Steven Baddour in November's election, but that didn't stop him from spending $191,000 from his campaign war chest over the past two years....
Faltering economy rules out income tax cut scheduled in Massachusetts by The Republican Newsroom
Saturday December 27, 2008, 1:03 AM
By DAN RING
dring@repub.com
BOSTON - As another reflection of the dismal economy, people will not receive a small cut in the state income tax that was scheduled to take effect with the new year.
Under a 2002 state law, the state's 5.3-percent personal income tax was set to drop to 5.25 percent on Jan....
In my first profile of potential candidates that Massachusetts Republicans have in 2010, I start unsurprisingly with a fellow Irishman from the South Shore. Michael Sullivan of Abington began his career in government in 1990 when he was elected as a member of the Massachusetts General Court where he represented his community and others for three terms. In 1995 Governor William Weld appointed Sullivan to be the District Attorney of Plymouth County following a vacancy. Sullivan went on to win election and reelection as the District Attorney of Plymouth County, where he instituted numerous reforms which expanded the role of the office in creating partnerships with federal and local authorities. As a result of these reforms and a renewed focus, District Attorney Michael Sullivan's office was able to resolve a number of the unsolved homicides in the county.
(A vote for Jenn Nassour. I like Brock think Nassour is our best bet. I can't wait for her to hit the ground running. - promoted by EaBo Clipper)
As the Massachusetts Republican State Committeeman who represents the municipalities of New Bedford, Dartmouth, Fairhaven, Acushnet, and Mattapoisett, I have the solemn duty of casting one of the votes to elect the next chairperson of our party. The new chairperson will serve a 2-year term following the election that is being held on the evening of January 27 during our quarterly MassGOP State Committee meeting. It is my distinct honor and profound pleasure to announce my personal endorsement of Jennifer Nassour to become the next chairperson of the Massachusetts Republican Party.
Nassour is a Boston-area attorney, holding degrees in both law and political science. Jennifer is a veteran of numerous Republican campaigns and causes. Jennifer is also an accomplished fundraiser. She served as the finance director for the campaign of Dan Grabauskas for Treasurer and she has raised more than $1 million for various political and charitable causes. Jenn's community involvement includes being active in the Junior League of Boston, the Charlestown Mother's Association, Hill House Council and the Park Street School Development Board, as well as serving on the Bridgewater State College Board of Trustees and being a former member of the Massachusetts Public Health Council.
Jennifer Nassour recently attended our SouthCoast GOP Chair Forum. Jennifer has reached out to the grassroots activists, seriously and soberly soliciting their input for a "work-in-progress" blueprint to rebuild the Massachusetts Republican Party into a strong, viable organization that will bring back true two-party balance to state government. Jenn and I agree wholeheartedly that a strong, vibrant MassGOP is crucial to the health of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
I have spent countless hours in correspondence and conversation with Jenn Nassour. Jennifer will ensure that all the various factions have a place and a voice at the proverbial table. I have full faith and confidence in Jennifer Nassour's abilities and the direction in which she wishes to take our Massachusetts Republican Party and, by extension, our Commonwealth.
Jennifer Nassour has a bold vision for rebuilding the MassGOP. I hope to work along side my friend over the next two years to make her plan a reality. I am convinced that Jennifer Nassour will make an exemplary MassGOP chairwoman.
Sincerely,
Brock N. Cordeiro
Massachusetts Republican State Committeeman
Second Bristol & Plymouth State Senate District
(New Bedford, Dartmouth, Fairhaven, Acushnet, & Mattapoisett)
