Worcester County Freedom Trail

Interesting development. Apparently some lawyers think there are good grounds for stopping Gov Patrick’s use of his “emergency” powers.

From the MassGOP:

Suffolk County Superior Court Judge Thomas Connolly has scheduled an 8 a.m. hearing tomorrow to consider the request for injunction filed today by the Massachusetts Republican Party. In its request, the MassGOP states it believes Governor Patrick has overstepped his authority by attaching an emergency preamble to the Senate vacancy law signed today and appointing Paul G. Kirk Jr. as Interim U.S. Senator.

Massachusetts Republican Party Chairman Jennifer Nassour said: “I thank the court for taking the time tomorrow for what we consider to be an important legal question. From the beginning, the Republican Party of Massachusetts has been focused on ensuring the laws of our Commonwealth are properly followed. While we opposed the change in the election law, once changed, we believe Governor Patrick has an obligation to follow the law as written. By immediately making an appointment, we believe the governor has overstepped his authority.”

Hearing Information:

Friday, September 25, 2009 at 8:00 a.m.

Superior Court, Suffolk County Courthouse
Courtroom 1006, F session
3 Pemberton Square
Boston, MA 02108

I’ve lived in this stage nearly 30 years and I still can’t believe how many of the Democrats on Beacon Hill are prepared to publicly lie and scam the system just to keep their stranglehold on politics in the People’s Republic of Massachusetts. Not only did the Dem’s show their hypocrisy in rewriting the rules for appointing a Senator, they then took advantage of an “emergency” loophole to put the measure into effect immediately because they didn’t have the 2/3 majority they needed to pass it.

Is anyone surprised that the Tea Party movement has so many followers? We’re sick of the deceit and political power plays.

I can’t say it better than it was said in this piece in Las Vegas Review Journal piece:

If Democrats remain mystified by “tea parties” and other recent expressions of outrage against Washington, they ought to look no further than what their own are trying to pull in Massachusetts as a perfect example of why many Americans are fed up with politicians and politics.

The shenanigans involve the U.S. Senate seat held by the late Ted Kennedy.

Until 2004, Massachusetts law empowered the state’s governor to fill an unexpected Senate vacancy. But the state had a Republican governor that year, and Sen. John Kerry won the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.

Worried that a Republican might be appointed to replace Sen. Kerry if he were elevated to the White House, Bay State Democrats, enjoying large legislative majorities, changed the rules to mandate that any vacancies be filled via special elections.

Fast forward five years. A Democrat now sits in the governor’s office. Sen. Kennedy loses his life fighting brain cancer. It will be at least four months before Massachusetts can hold a special election, and Democrats are one vote short of a filibuster-proof 60 in the U.S. Senate as they race to pass a radical agenda.

Solution? Massachusetts Democrats rewrite the rules again.

On Tuesday, the state Senate voted 24-16 to allow Gov. Deval Patrick to select Mr. Kennedy’s successor. The House passed the bill last week.

End of story? Nope.

Turns out that under the state constitution, laws passed by the legislature take effect 90 days after they’re signed by the governor — unless lawmakers attach a so-called “emergency pre-amble.”

Such emergency measures must be approved by a two-thirds majority — a benchmark lawmakers failed to achieve in ramming through changes in the succession process.

Not to worry.

The president of the Massachusetts Senate argues that the governor can get around the two-thirds problem by writing a letter to the secretary of state declaring his own “emergency.” Presto! He can then appoint a favored Democrat immediately to save the day for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

The lesson all this nonsense sends to schoolchildren is clear. Maintaining power is the primary purpose of political life. And if politicians don’t like the rules or constitutional restrictions that stand in their way, they simply change them — and if they can’t change them, they ignore them.

It’s the attitude that has given us a government that has grown far beyond the boundaries imposed by the nation’s founding document, a government that meddles in even the most minute aspects of daily life, a government fast heading off a financial cliff thanks to big spenders and redistributionists who view the productive classes as their own giant Treasury.

It’s the attitude that has a great many Americans up in arms. And they may have finally gotten sick enough to do something about it.

Excellent pictures of the 912 Tea Party march in DC from Massachusetts’ own Bob Parks.

http://www.black-and-right.com/2009/09/12/can-you-hear-us-now/

Here’s a great video from the thick of the march.

I received a call from the Worcester Tea Party’s Ken Mandile at the end of the rally. He said the crowd was so large that you couldn’t see the end of it. Michelle Malkin is saying the numbers were running toward 2 million! That’s a lot of friendly but angry conservatives. Will the government listen now?!?!?

UPDATE: Superb time lapse view of the crowds at the march. Thanks for the heads up, Michael.

UPDATE2: We had about 100 people show up in the pouring rain here in Worcester to rally with the 912 marchers in DC.

http://read-write-blue.blogspot.com/2009/09/saturday-912-worc_13.html

State Senator Richard T. Moore sponsored the nasty pandemic legislation, S.2028, that goes way too far in giving the state rights they don’t deserve on the pretense of a possible pandemic.

When asked by concerned citizens about why he would sponsor legislation that undermines our rights so severely, he asked, “What, are you an attorney?”

And when he was asked — Weren’t you elected to uphold the Constitution? — his reply was, “Oh that old thing. When was it written again? 18…?”

Senator Moore’s impeachment rally will be held on September 12, 2009, 123 Main St., Uxbridge, 12-5pm.

For more information, visit the MassLPA site.

Apparently Van Jones, the White House’s Green Czar, underestimated the resilience and support that Glenn Beck gets from supporters. Today we learned that Jones has resigned amid an uproar. As we discussed back in August, Jones is the founder of ColorofChange.org, an activist group that recently decided to attack Glenn Beck for his comments about Jones.

How pitifully low when one has a position of influence but decides to use it for personal wars.

From the Washington Post:

Jones, a towering figure in the environmental movement, had worked for the White House Council on Environmental Quality since March. He was a civil-rights activist in California before turning his focus to environmental and energy issues.

Jones issued two public apologies in recent days, one for signing a petition that questioned whether Bush administration officials “may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war” and the other for using a crude term to describe Republicans in a speech he gave before joining the administration.

His one-time involvement with the Bay Area radical group Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM), which had Marxist members and leanings, had also become an issue. And on Saturday his advocacy on behalf of death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was convicted of shooting a Philadelphia police officer in 1981, threatened to grow as a fresh point of controversy.

Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) called on Jones to resign Friday, saying in a statement, “His extremist views and coarse rhetoric have no place in this administration or the public debate.”

Senator Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.) urged Congress to investigate Jones’s “fitness” for the position, writing in an open letter, “Can the American people trust a senior White House official that is so cavalier in his association with such radical and repugnant sentiments?” On Saturday, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, wrote on his Twitter account, “Van Jones has to go.”

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Friday that Jones “continues to work for the administration” — but he did not state that the adviser enjoys the full support of President Obama, instead referring questions to the environmental council where he worked.

There was a time and a place when unions were a net good for society. That time seems to have long passed here in the US. The latest poll from Gallup shows that more than half of those surveyed think unions mostly hurt the economy.

From Slate:

Gruesome new poll numbers on public support for unions–the percent who say they “mostly hurt” the U.S. economy jumps from 39% in 2006 to 51% last month, for example. …. Tom Edsall calls them “horror show numbers” and wants an explanation! Hmmm. I wish I could say “card check”–the labor plan to avoid secret ballots when organizing–but that isn’t the most visible of the roles unions have played recently. The most visible would be 1) the auto industry, where the UAW helped bankrupt two of the Big Three and stuck taxpayers with the bill without even taking a cut in hourly pay, and 2) the public schools, which the teachers’ unions have helped to degrade in a way that adversely impacts the lives of even affluent Dem yuppies (at least those with kids). …It will be hard for me to avoid the Howell Raines Fallacy on this one: Once again the great and good American people have it right. … P.S.: Polls like this aren’t going to make it easy for the Senate to pass even a watered-down labor law “reform.” Did the UAW kill “card check”?

Why would the anyone punish 85% of the population to cover the other 15%? This is not the way to make health care better. Rep Mike Rogers from Michigan gives one heck of an opening statement on health care reform in Congress. You’ve got to see this. And spread the word!

President Obama will be giving a “welcome back to school” speech to school children across the nation on Tuesday, September 8th. If the speech is about the importance of putting in the work to get a good education, I’m all for it. If Obama is going to start talking about his plans to overhaul the health care system or the “global warming” crisis, then this is in incredibly bad taste. Children should not be used as pawns in politics (although the teachers’ unions tend to do that in their prop 2 1/2 advertising).

What we know is that teachers have been sent instructions on how to lead the class discussion about the President’s speech:

President Obama’s Address to Students Across America September 8, 2009 –

So teachers will be trying to get their students to hang on every word the President is saying. I’m hoping he therefore thinks very carefully about what he says.

On top of that, we have the wonderful news that Obama will be here in Boston on Labor Day to pitch his health care overhaul and give a boost to Martha Coakley’s recently announced campaign for the late Senator Ted Kennedy’s seat. Thanks to Rob for pointing me to this article in the Boston Globe:

President Obama’s grassroots group is bringing its health care overhaul push to Boston on Labor Day, with newly minted US Senate candidate Martha Coakley and a possible competitor, Representative Michael Capuano, featured at the rally.

Organizing for America announced this afternoon that the rally will be at 11 a.m. Monday at the Parkman Bandstand on Boston Common. It plans to present 30,000 declarations of support for Obama’s proposals from Massachusetts residents to the Bay State congressional delegation.

“The rally will be an opportunity for supporters of reform to show their backing for President Obama’s principles for health insurance reform which have been simple and consistent — reform will lower costs, protect choice and ensure all Americans have access to quality, affordable health care,” the announcement said.

Besides Coakley, now Massachusetts attorney general, and Capuano, Representative John Tierney and leaders of the Service Employees International Union and Health Care for America Now! will attend.

Organizers said there will be a moment of silence for the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy. Coakley announced Thursday she is seeking the seat, and Capuano is also considering a run.