The ongoing conflict within the MassGOP between Trumpist wingnuts and politically rational conservatives is as crazy and counter-productive as virtually every political analyst has indicated. It is, indeed, absurd for state Republicans to oppose Charlie Baker’s brand of conservatism. What it is not, however, is surprising or unexplainable. The most interesting thing about anti-Baker wingnuttery…
“Can’t Anyone Here Play this Game?” The Real Jim Lyons Problem
“Can’t anyone here play this game?” cried legendary baseball manager Casey Stengel, frustrated with the incompetence of his 1962 Amazin’ Mets. The Massachusetts Republican State Committee should be asking the same question—not because Jim Lyons is an inept chair but because Lyons is an inept culture warrior. The GOP needs to “reimagine” the chairmanship not…
Baker’s Re-election Depends on Pols, not Polls.
Charlie Baker’s decision about whether to seek an unprecedented third consecutive four-year term in the Corner Office is a lot more interesting and consequential than most people realize. If you really want to know whether Baker will run and whether he would win if he does run, pay attention to the words and deeds of…
What Scot Lehigh Missed Today: The Waltons of Arkansas
If there was ever any doubt of the importance of the defeat of the charter school ballot question in 2016, Scot Lehigh’s frozen-in-time A Time for Real Education Change column in the Boston Globe today reminds us of its importance: a 62-38% shellacking of the billionaire backers of Question 2 by teachers unions. But the…
Could “New England’s Civic Mythology” Become Reality in Post-COVID MA?
Today’s Boston Globe editorial was about how the use of creative ways to hold public meetings during the pandemic expanded opportunities for the public to participate in local governance in the Bay State. The Globe editors, who want these methods to become permanent, write: “In New England’s civic mythology, public meetings are allegedly the building…
Three Women and a Website? Keri Rodrigues Will Have to Do Better Than That
It’s important to the billionaire-backed front National Parents Union to offer the facade of progressivism so what happens when one of NPU president Keri Rodrigues’s closest friends, Erika Sanzi, helps launch an overtly racist operation in the school privatization universe? Duck and cover is what happens. Let’s take a look at a Twitter exchange between…
Your Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance Reader
Recently the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance’s non-profit lawyer the Koch-funded ($1 million per year) New Civil Liberties Alliance announced it would appeal a Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision against MassFiscal’s allies. The decision upheld Governor Baker’s emergency public health powers during the Covid pandemic. NCLA not only lost the case 6-0 but got laughed out of…
Ten Questions for National Parents Union
The Koch-Walton backed National Parents Union is experiencing turmoil at the top and severe mismanagement with two boards of directors featuring revolving directors and a disappeared co-founder. The organization is holding a convening on May 15 and its members (if there are any) should demand some answers. Here are questions they should be asking the…
Your National Parents Union Reader
The Walton Family’s fantasy of what a union should look like, the National Parents Union, is having its Virtual Convening on May 15, so what better time could there be to look back at a year plus of peeling the onion off of this fake progressive group? By popular demand, Your National Parents Union Reader!…
Recall Elections and Asymmetric Polarization
The Globe’s resident rightwing columnist, Jeff Jacoby, has provided another example of a very tired genre of political commentary in his latest work. Seizing on the present effort to recall California’s Democratic governor, Jacoby is flogging liberals for equating this direct democracy gift of early 20th century progressives with an “attack on democracy.” As usual,…