Alarmingly, House Kennedy lacks a suitable heir to the vacant Senate seat!  The last real possibility declined to be elevated to the position:

BOSTON – Joseph P. Kennedy II’s decision not to seek the U.S. Senate seat long held by his late uncle, Edward M. Kennedy, has touched off a succession scramble.

(H/T: Hot Air) For those keeping track: this is the Kennedy that makes six figures running a nonprofit organization and who cozies up to Hugo Chavez.  He’s not the anti-science Kennedy with the crazy beliefs on autism; and he’s not the Kennedy with the drunk driving problem… to be more specific, he’s not the Kennedy currently in Congress with the drunk driving problem.  He’s not even the Kennedy that had the song “Sweet Caroline” written for her; which is a shame, because as near as I can tell that’s the most useful thing that any of the younger generations of Kennedy aristos have been associated with in my lifetime.

At any rate, the people of Massachusetts are giving serious consideration to having something called an ‘election’ for the Senate seat: no word yet whether the eventual winner will have to change his or her name to Kennedy afterward.

Moe Lane

PS: Today, John Kerry woke up, went to the bathroom mirror, and murmured “Senior Senator from Massachusetts” to his reflection.  This has become part of the little ritual of the morning for him, and helps counter the mental vertigo that comes from going through one’s days without never quite being certain what one should be doing next.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

This is great reporting.

A Westport lawmaker who voted to hike the state sales and alcohol taxes was spotted brazenly piling booze in his car - adorned with his State House license plate - in the parking lot of a tax-free New Hampshire liquor store, the Herald has learned.

Ad yes, this is worth a front page post. Rodriques voted to raise taxes on people in what amounts to a blue collar tax. He can afford to and does drive across state lines to avoid his own handy work.

Typical.

It is surprising that the national debate on Obamacre has thus far excluded any real examination of the state wide healthcare program signed into law in 2006 by Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts. But maybe the fact that Romneycare, a system closely resembling Obama’s policies, is failing on several levels serves as a reason that Democrats want to pretend that system doesn’t exist when debating their own programs.

The Wall Street Journal had a July 11 editorial that looked a little closer at Romneycare and found the whole thing wanting, suggesting that Obamacare might be “dead on arrival” if Romneycare is reviewed.

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Something amusing is happening in Massachusetts. Barack Obama-wannabe Democratic Governor Deval Patrick is looking to run for re-election. The Democratic State Treasurer Tim Cahill probably can’t win a Democratic primary against him, so what does he do? He becomes an independent.

State Treasurer Tim Cahill this week will change his political party designation from Democrat to unenrolled, the first step in mounting an independent challenge to Democratic governor Deval Patrick in the 2010 general election, two advisers said today.

The thing is, this might create an opportunity for Republicans. A 3-way race could be winnable, even in a state as blue as Massachusetts. This leaves an opening for someone like Charlie Baker, who has both political or business experience. Baker would have to step down as the CEO of a health care company, a subject that happens to be one of the state’s major problems:

The centerpiece of Massachusetts’ 2006 health reform bill is Commonwealth Care, a government program that provides free and subsidized insurance plans to low- and moderate-income patients. It’s spending has doubled in the last two years, jumping from $630 million in 2007 to an estimated $1.3 billion in fiscal year 2009.

Last year, rising costs lead Commonwealth Care officials to approve a 12 percent rate increase, meaning that basic insurance costs will cut even deeper into the incomes of most participating patients.

Alternatively… Mitt Romney could run. He won once. He made the problem, but has complained that it wasn’t implemented as he would have.  He could run, win, and fix it… I’d even endorse him.

But probably not. Probably we will have to support Charlie Baker in his fight to save his state.

According to a poll released yesterday, the first elected African American governor of Massachusetts is extremely unpopular and in danger of losing his re-election bid next year:

When matched against Christy Mihos, the Democratic governor picks up 40% of the vote and trails the potential GOP nominee by a single point.

If Charlie Baker is the Republican nominee, Patrick’s support is little changed at 41% while Baker is favored by 36%. Baker is a health care chief executive officer who has not yet formally decided if he is entering the race.

In both match-ups, the number preferring “some other candidate” is in double digits, and roughly one-out-of-10 voters is undecided.

The fact that the numbers are so similar regardless of which Republican is mentioned suggest that the race so far is viewed as a referendum on the incumbent rather than a choice between competing alternatives.

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Elections have consequences.

A failed state.

While its electoral history allows it some pretense to claiming a democratic system of government, its current one-party regime has resulted in crumbling infrastructures and drastic budget shortfalls. Its supposedly high-minded ruling caste keeps getting embroiled in scandal after scandal, ranging from ordinary corruption to substance abuse; their highest figures are especially notorious about violating their own (loudly-proclaimed) religious principles when it suits them. When faced with an increasingly-popular and populist movement drawing on a glorious revolutionary past, the regime seems alternatively derisive and frightened - but cannot seem to find an answer past the standard nonsense that everything is all right, despite the evidence of one’s eyes. And ruling above all is an already deeply unpopular leader whose own lackeys privately worry about how he can win a legitimate election.

All in all, the Massachusetts Democratic Party has seen better days.

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It’s almost as if he doesn’t like people actually treating him as some sort of elected official, instead of His Excellency, Baron Massachusetts-Four.

(Via @BrianFaughnan)

How dare that commoner object to having what he said be corrected by his betters! Didn’t he know who he was talking to?

Moe Lane

PS: I almost imagine that Article I, Section 9 is beginning to grate upon certain of our legislators. To effectively have the thing, but not the name of the thing itself…

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

(Via Protein Wisdom) How fortunate the subjects* of MA-04 are to have as their overlord someone who can make certain that the collective pain of an automotive company bailout ends up collectively pain[ing] everybody else but them:

Rep Barney Frank (D-Mass.) won a stay of execution on Thursday for a General Motors plant in his district that the automaker had announced it would close.

No other lawmaker has managed to halt the GM ax. As chairman of the House Financial Services Committee Frank oversees the government’s bailout program, known as TARP. Frank’s staff said the lawmaker spokes with GM CEO Fritz Henderson on Wednesday and convinced him to keep the Norton, Mass. plant open for at least 14 months.

GM announced Monday in its bankruptcy and restructuring plans it would close of nine of its plants and idle three others. The automaker said it would also shutter three service and parts operations by the end of the year — one of which is in Frank’s district.

Bad luck for the folks in the yet-to-be-determined plant that thought that their jobs were safe, and now have to lose them because MA-04’s subjects are special - more accurately, because their overlord is special - but I’m sure that the Democrats will find a suitably Republican district to punish.  After all, once you’ve decided that some animals are more equal than others, why not go whole hog, as it were?

Moe Lane

PS: This would be the time where I would suggest that the subjects of MA-04 should make the decision that they want to be citizens, again: only, I can’t quite make myself believe that there’s any chance that the suggestion would work.

*That should be an insult that would start fights in bars in this country; but it’s not.  Alas.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

(Via NTCNews‘ sidebar) Good luck with getting that resolved, Senator:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Internal Revenue Service has filed a $819,848 tax lien against Sen. John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign, but Kerry on Wednesday blamed an IRS clerical error for the claim and said his campaign owes no tax penalties.

The Massachusetts Democrat said the IRS mishandled payroll tax forms that he said were correctly filed by his campaign in 2005.

Apparently the junior Senator from Massachusetts is finding it impossible to make the IRS see reason on this issue. For the record, I believe him; there’s precisely the “But we jumped through those hoops already” puzzled/confused/warily exasperated tone coming from his staff that one associates with dealing with a government bureaucracy with the bit in its teeth.  The truly interesting part?  Usually a Senator has enough power to get an honest-to-God mistake rectified; which might say something about the validity of Kerry’s case, but probably says rather more of the Senator’s influence.

I would like to think of this as a teachable moment for Senator Kerry about various aspects of our tax code: only, well…

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

Shedding the Democrat-imposed and Republican-aided stereotype that they are the “Party of No” — no ideas, no cooperation, and no legislative alternatives — four Republicans today submitted a legislative alternative to the Democratic party’s federal government-centric health care “reform” proposals.

This morning, Senators Dr. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and and Richard Burr (R-NC) and Representatives Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Devin Nunes (R-CA) announced their “Patients’ Choice Act of 2009,” an attempt to “achieve universal access to quality, affordable health care without bankrupting our children with trillions more in debt or imposing draconian tax hikes on all Americans,” according to a release from the four Republicans, who added:

“The Patients’ Choice Act of 2009,” transforms health care in America by strengthening the relationship between the patient and the doctor; using choice and competition rather than rationing and restrictions to contain costs; and ensuring universal, affordable health care for all Americans.

“The Patients’ Choice Act” promotes innovative, State-based solutions, along with fundamental reforms in the tax code, to give every American, regardless of employment status, age, or health condition, the ability and the resources to purchase health insurance. The comprehensive legislation includes concrete prevention and transparency initiatives, long overdue reforms to Medicare and Medicaid, investments in wellness programs and health IT, and more.

Let’s take a closer look at the bill below the fold.

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Democrats often tell us that one critical difference between the two parties is that the Democrats are more giving and compassionate. I’m not sure if that’s true in general, but it’s true in at least one important respect: Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick is giving Republicans a huge political issue.

The State of Massachusetts faces a severe budget shortfall, and Governor Patrick is using nearly $1 billion in porkulus cash and reserve funds to keep the state running a few more months. Yet despite being in dire fiscal straits, Patrick is giving free cars to welfare recipients:

In Gov. Deval Patrick’s Massachusetts, if you’re on the dole, you may be eligible to get a free car. So much for the budget Armageddon they keep talking about at the State House.

Let the taxpayers worry about those billion-dollar deficits. If you’re on welfare, come on down!

Nice enough that the layabouts get a free car - plus the state picks up the tab for insurance, excise tax, title, registration, inspection, and approved repairs. The absolute frosting on the cake is a free AAA membership…

Supposedly, these free welfare cars will enable the non-taxpayer to get a job. If they lose the job, the state comes down hard on them - we the taxpayers will not reimburse the cost of insurance after the first six months. If the client quits work or is laid off during the first 12 months, all transportation benefits end, but the client will still keep the car.

If I didn’t check to confirm this is true, I would have thought it was a joke. How can Massachusetts justify such handouts while it’s unable to pay its bills? It seems that one answer is the federal ’stimulus’ bill, which is allowing the state to overcome the shortfall and continue to provide programs like this one.

In 2006, Governor Mitt Romney (R), working with a Democratic state legislature, passed and signed the Massachusetts Health Care Reform Act, a groundbreaking piece of legislation aimed at ensuring that every citizen of the Bay State possessed health insurance, while simultaneously lowering the cost of health coverage and improving access to quality care.

Unfortunately, the program in practice has been a colossal failure, expanding state bureaucracy and government control over the health care market and provider-patient dealings, while simultaneously driving up health insurance premia, increasing health care costs, and creating a chronic shortage of providers – all at an annual price tag of over twice the originally-estimated $600 million.

Centralizing Control of Health Care

The Massachusetts Health Care Reform Act took a three-pronged approach to dealing with the “problem” of the state’s uninsured population, which was relatively low at the time (about 550,000 according to state figures, and 657,000 according to the U.S. Census Bureau).

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This is not a story of bias in the media. It is a story, rather, that affects both the Old Media of newspapers, TV and radio, as well as the New Media of the Internet. Our disagreements with the Old Media aside, we both stand to see trouble if a recent court case in Massachusetts gains momentum or is applied liberally henceforth.

The Associated Press reports on a libel case in Boston that pits a fired employee of the Staples office supply chain against his former employer. Staples, as it happens, sent out an emailed newsletter informing its employees that salesman Alan Noonan was fired for padding his expense account. Noonan sued for libel. Alarmingly, even though the emailed newsletter was reporting the strict truth the court held that truth was no defense in this case.

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