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Thanks, Massachusetts, for defeating that jerk in the primary! Several people asked me if I'd post again with my preferences for the November election, so here it is, just barely in time.

In brief:

• Re-elect Deval Patrick, Barney Frank, James McGovern, John Tierney.


• Defeat all three questions. No on 1, 2, 3.


• Steve Grossman for Treasurer, Suzanne Bump for Auditor, and though it pains me to say it, Coakley for Attorney General.


• In the 10th district, if Jeff Perry gets even 20% it'll be too much. Don't let him win.

Deval Patrick, our Governor, has done a good job in tough times. I've been frustrated with him sometimes, but more often, I've been impressed with how much he's accomplished. Maybe it's because of the contrast with his three predecessors (Celucci, Swift, Romney). I recently got asked, "What good things has Deval Patrick done?" and I wrote this long response. Take a look. Several commenters have added some great points to what I wrote.

For the other statewide offices, I recommend watching these short videos in which Jim Braude of NECN interviews the opposing candidates together.

My biggest worry is that Question 3 may pass. That question is to slash the sales tax from 6.25% down to 3%. Taxes bring in about $20 billion / year in revenue to the state currently, and question 3 would reduce that by about $2.5 billion. Proponents have been pressed to explain where they think that money should come out of, but they have no specific answers. And unless our economy recovers more quickly than anticipated, chances are a lot of that money would come out of cuts in local aid to cities and towns, would would cut schools and libraries and police departments and road and streetlight maintenance and so on, and also cause property taxes (and hence rents) to go up. No on 3.

Question 1 seeks to exempt alcohol from the sales tax. Although that's not as big a deal in the larger scheme of things, it offends me. WTF? Why should alcohol get this special exemption? Some proponents of Q1 say that there's also an excise tax on alcohol, so some of the sales tax you pay is actually tax on a tax, which is double taxation. They fail to point out that the excise tax is much much smaller, and the "double tax" amounts to less than a cent a bottle, usually. But even if that weren't so, if they really think there should be no excise tax on alcohol, they could've put a question on the ballot to eliminate the excise tax on alcohol. So again, WTF? This question is a ridiculous attempt to give beer & wine sellers special favors. Why not exempt books from the sales tax? Or how about sex toys? No on 1.

Bill Galvin, our incumbent Secretary of State, continues his long streak of avoiding all debates and candidate forums. And just like he did to us in 2006 (when I worked for his primary opponent), he once again pretended to agree to a debate and then backed out at the last moment. He's also managed to prevent Massachusetts from having election day registration for another few years. Unfortunately, his Republican opponent openly opposes election day registration, and seeks to add hard ID requirements for voters at the polls. He's the typical Republican anti-voting activist sort, obsessed with the non-problem of excess voters, and willing to go to whatever lengths he can to prevent legitimate voters from voting. Jim Henderson, the independent candidate, is better than both of them by far, but unfortunately due to no debates and no polling, it's really hard to say how much support each of Galvin's opponents have. Might our incumbent sleaze be replacecd by the Republican regressive? I really wish we had instant runoff (or any preference voting system). Of course, we'll never get that while Galvin is secretary, and I'm sure he likes the fact that it makes it hard to decide to vote for good candidates like Henderson. But I also really wish Henderson had run against Galvin int he Democratic primary, where there'd be no such "spoiler" worry. :/

[ Edit: ghudson points out that a new poll was published a few days ago, while I was out of town, that shows that Galvin, unsurprisingly, will probably be re-elected easily. So chances are there's little danger; vote Henderson for Secretary ]

I really don't like Martha Coakley, but unfortunately her opponent really doesn't seem ready for the job :( Watch the mini-debate and you'll see. And at least Martha will fight in federal court for lgbt rights, so there's a redeeming factor to re-electing her.

And then there's the 10th Congressional district, an open seat since the incumbent, Bill Delahunt, is retiring. This district covers much of the South Shore starting in Quincy, plus all of the Cape & Island. Bill Keating, the Democrat, seems like a decent candidate. Jeff Perry, the Republican... a former police officer who claimed a college degree from a diploma mill, and used a remote control to trip traffic lights from green to red so that he could "gotcha!" drivers with tickets, but all of that has been overshadowed by this:

Jeff Perry covered up for his subordinate abusing teen girls by illegally strip searching them. He left the police, and his chief doubted his honesty. He still insists he didn't know - even though he once visited a girl's parents to try to get them not to report his subordinate's strip search. Here's a public statement from one victim.

Apparently no newspapers endorsed him. But this creep is still going to get some votes. Try to make sure none of those votes come from anyone you know in the 10th?

Last week I posted about the statewide races in the Democratic primary. Summary:

• Guy Glodis, running for Auditor, is a bigot and a sleaze.


• Of the other two, I like Suzanne Bump more than Mike Lake, though I think both are good. Bump also seems to have a much better chance of winning, so vote for her to beat Glodis.


• For Treasurer, Steve Grossman - who I've met in person, who got good endorsements, and who's going to focus on transparency and getting state financial information online.

I also care about, or have opinions on, some other Democratic primary races around the state:

• Please volunteer for Mac D'Alessandro tomorrow! That's where I'll be. He's challening incumbent Stephen Lynch, who's anti-choice, supported the Iraq war & the Patriot Act, voted to intervene with Terry Schiavo, and was the only US Rep from New England to vote against health care reform. Mac disagrees with him on all of these things.


• State Senator Sonia Chang-Diaz of Boston, a friend and one of the best legislators in the state, has a primary challenger. We need more of her in the Senate, not fewer.


• In the funny-shaped district that covers parts of Allston/Brighton, Cambridge, Somerville, Charlestown, and the north shore, in the rematch between DiDomenico & Flaherty, I prefer Tim Flaherty. DiDomenico campaigned on how well connected he is, evaded stating his positions, and gave me a bad impression.


• I hadn't much followed the Malden/Melrose/Stoneham/Wakefield/etc. state senate race, but it turns out several friends I've been on other campaigns with, are working or volunteering for Mike Day's campaign. So consider this an indirect recommendation (me trusting their collective judgement because they've got good records of picking good candidates).


• I've tried, and failed, to find out much about the candidates for Governor's Council in the 6th district. But I have gotten several reports from people who saw or met Terrence Kennedy campaigning, and liked him, and he's got a web site telling us a bit about him. His opponent doesn't seem to have one, and I haven't heard of anyone seeing her campaigning.

I'm planning to drop by Representative Capuano's office near the Galleria tomorrow at lunch, bringing a copy of MoveOn's new pledge to ask him to sign on. The pledge has three points:

• Support a Constitutional Amendment to overturn the Citizens' United ruling that corporations have the same rights as people*.


• Public financing for political campaigns.


• Lobbying reform.

I'm also planning to bring along a copy of these polling results from People For the American Away to reinforce the pledge.

Wanna join me? It'd be nice to have a couple of other people along.

* Actually, that idea has been treated as precedent for over a century, but the pledge states it in terms of overturning the CU decision, and I think that's okay - the goal is the same.

Sunday was the 3rd aniversary of the largest terrorist attack in Boston in our lifetimes.

Okay, the terrorists were cartoon characters, and the attack was a fantastical illusion in the minds of the authorities, but it shut down buildings and highways, struck fear in possibly millions of people and hysteria in the media for a while, and Boston hasn't seen a real terrorist attack to top it yet.

My reactions on that day included incredulous hysterical laughter, and mounting annoyance and dismay which, over the next few days, turned more and more into anger at the city of Boston and the state of Massachusetts (and in particular, Mayor Menino and Attorney General Martha Coakley). A week after the craziness, I put my thoughts together and posted this:

What Does Random Panic Protect Us From?

Some of you probably read that back then, or when I re-posed the link on the first aniversary. If you missed it, or if you don't remember, please re-read it... and send a copy to your representatives? Because we're still overreacting to "terrorism" in absurd and nutty ways, and many people in government do it because they assume that all of us expect and demand it, and that if they don't do it they'll lose our support.

[ Recap for people not in Massachusetts: Today is the general election to fill the US Senate seat vacated by Ted Kennedy last year. ]

Since I made it clear how much I don't like Martha Coakley, the Democratic nominee, I feel I need to say this: Please vote for her today.

Most of those things I don't like about her? Scott Brown's positions are as bad or worse. Whatever her tolerance for shoddy prosecutions and low regard for civil liberties protections... Brown thinks the president should just be able to declare someone guilty and avoid the whole "fair trial" process altogether, and as far as I can tell, torture is just fine with him.

Have you been frustrated at the way every decent piece of legislation Obama has asked for, has been hacked into bits in the Senate in strained efforts to get the support of Olympia Snowe or Joe Lieberman to get through the Republicans 39-member "filibuster every damn bill no matter what" block? If Brown gets elected, that block will grow to 40, and nothing will get past the Senate unless it can get both Snowe and Lieberman's support. Lieberman will become an even more unavoidable roadblock.

Health care: Here's what will happen if Scott Brown wins today's election: the US House will vote on the Senate's crappy bill as is, because it's better than passing nothing, and since the Senate has already passed it, that will be the only way to get health care reform through without going back to the Senate. The House's ability to demand improvements would likely collapse instantly as soon as a Brown election victory is announced.

Yeah, I still don't like Coakley, but all the good candidates in this election already lost last month. Sometimes you lose elections, it happens. Now, though, we determine just how much of a loss it will be.

Martha Coakley will champion equal rights for women and LGBT people, work for more health care improvements, support infrastructure investments for economic recovery, fight financial fraud and predatory banking practices, support Obama's policy of diplomacy and engagement while also supporting efforts to remove American troops from Afghanistan, and support clean energy legislation. Brown would be her opposite on all of those things.

Polls are open 7am - 8pm. Find your polling place at WhereDoIVoteMA.com.

Several years ago, when the country was plagued with touchscreen voting machines that made re-counts impossible and gave no way to verify that their counts weren't buggy, Representative Rush Holt (one of the few scientists in Congress) was pushing a bill that would've required these machines to at least produce a paper printout at the time votes were cast, that voters could look at. While he - and I - much preferred paper ballots instead of voting by touchscreen, he didn't think he could get that passed, while this seemed to have a chance, and was better than nothing. Holt's bill had about 150 cosponsors, including multiple Republicans (Holt is a Democrat), but my Representative, Mike Capuano (Boston/Cambridge/Somerville/Chelsea) was not on the list.

I called Capuano's office to ask, and they told me he opposed it. Why? They weren't sure, so they said they'd find out and call me back, and not long after, they did call me back to explain.
( What Capuano's objection was, and what I did with that information... )

Capuano's office thanked me for the call, and said they'd pass along everything I'd said to the Congressman.

Shortly after, Capuano co-sponsored Holt's bill.

I've had this story in the back of my mind for years, and am finally getting around to posting it now because Massachusetts is holding a special election tomorrow to elect a replacement for Ted Kennedy in the US Senate. Mike Capuano is running in tomorrow's Democratic primary, and I hope you'll vote for him. I've had several other interactions with him since this one, and he's changed my mind on a few things. I've found him to be effective, smart, progressive, great at constituent service, and great at his job in Congress, and I think he'd be a good replacement for Senator Kennedy. I hope that if you live in Massachusetts, you'll vote for him, and whether you do or not, you'll pass this on to people you know in Massachusetts.

Several people asked me for an update to my earlier post about what you can do if you want a public health insurance option passed. Sorry I've been slow. Now's the time to call, so read this today if you want to help.

Where We Are Now

Everything I wrote then remains true. Here's what has changed:

1. I said the Senate Finance Committee would come up with a terrible proposal. Indeed, the Baucus-Grassley proposal was completed, and it is irredeemably awful.


2. I said that the public option probably had the support of a majority of the House and Senate. Now we know that to be true; it has been independently verified by Democracy for America.


3. I said that the media was misleading you by focusing on the Senate Finance Committee, since other committees were done and Finance was the only one where there was still some action. That's even more true in the past few weeks, and the press has made it seem as if the fate of reform lies in what amendments pass or fail in the Finance Committee. That's still false; the fate of reform lies in whether or not we prevent the Finance Committee's idiocy from becoming law.
   
4. I said that our best strategy for good health reform legislation with a strong public option is to defeat the Baucus-Grassley proposal in committee, so that Finance passes no bill at all. That vote may happen this week.

If you want it, more detail about points #1 and #2 ( here behind the cut... )

What You Can Do

Briefly: Call Democrats on the Finance Committee and ask them to vote NO in committee on the Baucus-Grassley proposal (officially "America's Healthy Future Act").

Last time, I asked you to call and thank those Representatives who had signed a letter saying they would vote against final legislation without a public option. They stiffened the House's backbone, vs. the Senate, on this.

Now, the Senate is where we can make a difference: If we can prevent Finance from passing its awful bill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will run out of time to wait for them, and will bring the much much better HELP Committee bill (with a public option) to the Senate Floor as the base legislation. If we can manage that, we head off that fight between the House and Senate, and nearly ensure a better bill becomes law. If we can't manage it, then things get harder; our odds for getting a public option would still be better than 50%, but they'd be lower, and all sorts of other bad stuff from the Finance Committee might make it into law too.

Finance has 13 Democrats and 10 Republicans. We can expect Republicans to vote no, but there's a risk that Olympia Snowe will vote yes. So, to be relatively safe, I think we need 4 Democrats to vote no. If Grassley and Enzi vote yes, we'll need 6 Democratic no votes, but if the proposal turns out to be so horrible that even Grassley and Enzi would vote for it, we shouldn't have much trouble getting some extra Democrats to oppose it.

Chuck Schumer (D-NY) submitted an amendment in committee to add a public option to the Baucus-Grassley bill. It failed, but 10 of the committee's 13 Democrats voted for it. Can we find 4 from among those 10, who will vote no on the whole bill?

Here's a list of Finance Committee members. Do you live in one of their states? Call! Tell your Senator's office that you think the Baucus-Grassley proposal is terrible and cannot be salvaged, and ask them if they'll commit to voting "no" on it in committee, so that the much better HELP bill can become the Senate's base bill.

Here are the ten who voted for Schumer's public option amendment:

• Massachusetts: John Kerry - 202-224-2742


• New York: Chuck Schumer - 202-224-6542


• New Jersey: Robert Menendez - 202-224-4744


• Delaware: Tom Carper - 202-224-2441


• Michigan: Debbie Stabenow - 202-224-4822


• West Virginia: John D Rockefeller - 202-224-6472


• New Mexico: Jeff Bingaman - 202-224-5521


• Florida: Bill Nelson - 202-224-5274


• Washington: Maria Cantwell - 202-224-3441


• Oregon: Ron Wyden - 202-224-5244

[context, in case you need it] Obama has proposed including a "public option" which would basically be single-payer health care, but coexist with private for-profit insurance. People or employers could choose the public option, just as they could choose any existing private plan. If it turns out to be better than private insurers, they'll either get better to survive, or they'll get smaller and we'll have national single payer, more or less.

So, this post is for those of you who want this public option to happen.

First: We're winning. We're ahead. Press coverage has been very misleading, ( for several reasons... )

Despite what it may seem from the news, a public option is >50% likely. On the other hand, it's not anywhere near 100% likely, so it can definitely use your help! And you can easily do some things that'll have a big effect on its chances.

If you're interested, here's what's happening in Congress, and why the actions I recommend below will matter. Or, you can ( skip the details, and just do them. )

We have two points of pressure to apply:
One: Support the House Progressives who have signed the letter saying they will vote No on any bill without a public option, so they stick to what they've pledged despite all the pressure they're likely to be under to back off.
Two: Try to get the Sneate Finance committee to stall and not pass a bad bill.

A word about supporting the Reps who signed the letter... here's Darcy Burner's plea, paraphrased: "When they do something lobbyists want, they get a big fat check, and a thank-you visit. when they do something we (progressives) want, sometimes they don't even get a single phone call!!" Darcy told me about one Representative who, when he voted against the FISA bill last year with immunity for warrantless wiretapping, got something like 50 thank you phone calls, and about $1200 in small donations. That seems like very little, yet she says he was so excited about it he's still bringing it up now. Remember, these are Reps who want to do that things we want them to do. We don't need to give them more money than the lobbyists do, we just need to validate them in doing what they're already doing because they want to. We need to make them feel that it really is appreciated, so they'll feel confident when under pressure. It only takes a few phone calls, and a few small donations (100 people giving $12 each, for example).

If you want this to happen, do these things this week:

• Look at this list of House members who signed the letter and if yours is on it, make a quick phone call to say thank you.


• Even better, if you can, make a small donation - even if it's just $10. And then - this is key - call the Representative to not only thank him/her, but also to say "I just made a small donation to you because you committed to vote No on health care reform if it doesn't have a strong public option." Imagine the effect it'd have on someone, who wants a public option, to know that people gave them money specifically because they said they'd vote this way. How can they back down now?


• Is your rep not on the list? Donate to some others, and call them and tell them you gave money because of this.


• Your rep not on the list? Find a Rep on the list whose district has someone you know in it, and get that someone you know to call them and say thank you. Find another, and another, and repeat.


• Massachusetts people: John Kerry is on the Senate Finance Committee. He wants a public option. Call him and urge him to pledge to vote no in committee on any bill without a strong public option. Literally that: vote no in committee. It'd only take a few Senators to block the compromise from passing, and if the Finance Committee can't produce a bill, then the much better HELP committee bill will become the base bill on the Senate floor. Then theres no need for a fight between the Senate and the House, and we win.


• Non-MA people: see if your Senator is on the Finance Committee.


• Sign Democracy for America's petition and DFA/PCCC's advertisement for the public option. DFA is Howard Dean's organization, and his top focus these days is getting a public option passed.

Edit: To find a Senator or Representative's phone number:
- Google their name
- Go to their house.gov or senate.gov web site, and click "contact"
- Call their DC office, the one with a 202 area code. Local offices usually focus on constituent services, DC offices handle legislation.

Yesterday was the 20th aniversary of June 4th, 1989 - the Chinese crackdown on a massive protest in Tiananmen Square, Beijing. Although we remember June 4th as the climax, the military crackdown actually took several days, beginning on June 3rd - which was also the day the Ayatollah Khomeini died, and a massive gas explosion on the Trans-Siberian Railway destroyed two trains and killed 575 people. It was not a slow news day.*

Today is the aniversary of the photo that came to represent June 4th, 1989, but was actually taken the following day, as the military crackdown continued after Tiananmen Square itself was cleared. At the time, we saw it on TV: the man standing in the street as a column of tanks approach and then stop. The lead tank trying to go around him to the left and right a few times, but he keeps moving into its path. Finally, after about a minute, he climbs onto the tank, leans into the compartment to apparently say something (or just look?), and walks off.

Tank Man became a symbol of individual courage against the military machine of authoritarianism, as well as the icon representing the Chinese protests and movement of 1989.

That fall Shen Tong, one of the leaders of the Tiananmen Square protesters, started college at Brandeis: He had already been accepted for a Wien Scholarship at Brandeis, and had a passport and visa which allowed him to escape to the US. Brandeis became a center of Chinese dissidents and activisim in the few years after June 4th.**

That fall I also started college at Brandeis, and I attended a big conference on the Chinese protests and prodemocracy movement that was held in a building almost adjacent to my dorm. Shen Tong was the keynote, of course, and I remember listening to him speak, but I don't specifically remember what he said. What sticks out most in my memory is a panel presentation on how the protests and crackdown were portrayed in the Chinese press...

... apparently, the famous photo of Tank Man was ubiquitous on Chinese TV as well. Although the entire incident has been whitewashed from Chinese history in the decades since, back in 1989 it was big news, and so was Tank Man. Here in the west, he represented courage and standing up to authority. In China, said the professor who had recently been there, he meant something else: He was the Chinese Government's symbol of the peacefulness of their military. How, even in the midst of it all, a column of tanks stopped for a lone unarmed man in the street, and did not move forward until he walked away of his own accord.

I was temporarily stunned, but then I realized: You know what? They were right, too. A column of armed tanks did stop for a lone unarmed man in the street. He represents that, too. Truth is like the blind men's elephant, but even though we have the capacity to look at other parts of it, we often don't notice they're there.

Yesterday, a new photograph of tank man was published for the first time. Take from street level, it shows a couple of other protesters fleeing, with him in the background standing alone on the street, waiting for the tanks. It tells a related but somewhat different story than the images we've seen.

What about all the stories that could be told of this incident, that we're never going to see, because a photographer didn't happen to be in the right spot to capture them? Or because a propogandist didn't happen to exist with the vested interest in ferretting out that particular interpretation?

* My memory keeps telling me that a fourth very big thing happened that day, but I can't remember what it was.

** For example, the Chinese dissident movement in diaspora had a weekly radio show co-produced in Chicago and at WBRS at Brandeis. They were on shortly after a show I did on Saturdays, and some weeks they'd just play the tapes from Chicago, so they often asked me to cover for them and I'd sit there reading or doing homework while playing tapes of Chinese announcers and interviews, all speaking very rapidly, with a music bit from the New World Symphony in between each clip.

[ Crossposed to Open Salon ]

202-456-1414 is the White House switchboard line. If you call it...

40% chance: You will automatically tranfer to the White House Comment Line
30% chance: You'll get a person, but sometime during the first or second sentence (of yours or theirs), you'll be instantly transferred to the Comment Line mid-sentence
30% chance: You'll get a person and actually have a chance to tell them what you're calling about. Then:
1 out of 3 times (10% of total): They'll transfer you to the Comment Line regardless of whether it's appropriate.
2 out of 3 times (20% of total): They'll transfer you somewhere other than the Comment Line.

This is based on about 35 minutes of calling, until I finally reached the appropriate department. So I may be biasing these numbers in favor of "transfer somewhere other than the Comment Line", since my termination condition for the experiment fit in that set. The odds may actually be below 20%.

However! 202-456-1111 is the White House Comment Line. If you call it...
~3% chance: Someone will take your comment
~97% chance: Busy signal

So the Switchboard number is actually a great way to bypass the busy signal and get through to the comment line. And usually, you won't even have to ask - you'll just get to the comment line.

Old, but worth revisiting now, for some insight into the way our new president thinks about and practices politics...

More than a year before he decided to run for president - before he was even considering it, based on what I've read - Barack Obama as a new US Senator in his first year in office was criticized by some people on Democratic-leaning blogs, regarding the confirmation of Justice Roberts to the Supreme Court.

Obama voted against Roberts, but he spoke out in support of some other Democratic Senators who voted for the confirmation, and he did not attempt to organize a filibuster. Because of the way Congressional Democrats had acquiesced to so many bad things the Bush administration had done in the previous five years, many people were upset at anything they saw as not fighting hard enough, not standing up to Bush and trying to stop him as he made yet another bad decision that would harm the country. Obama's actions seemed to many (though far from all) people on the lefty blogs to be part of this pattern.

Barack Obama, it turns out, was carefully reading the major blogs. In response to the criticsms of his conduct on the Roberts confirmation, he created an account for himself on Daily Kos, and wrote this essay - not only explaining why he did what he did in this instance, but his larger political outlook, his views on political strategy, and how his actions fit those views:

Tone, Truth, and the Democratic Party

In his followup post, where he answered some of the comments, he added,
"Finally, some of you wondered whether I wrote the post myself. I did."

Now that he's become president, and his term begins with a high-profile "negotiation" with Congressional Republicans, and everyone's looking at what he says and does and commenting on it, I think it's well worth going back to this post for some context.