Tag: Massachusetts

Politics & Economics

In Case You Need to Know How to Vote on Tuesday…

Posted on by John W Gillis / 0 Comment

The coveted MaybeToday.org Election 2012 endorsements and voting guidelines are here at last. Readers will certainly want to use these statements to inform their own decision-making prior to the upcoming election. For example, any of my neighbors in Precinct 8 of lovely Natick Massachusetts could print out this post and take it with them to the Morse Room in the Morse Institute Library next Tuesday, for use as instructions on precisely how to cast one’s votes (I think that would be legal, but I have to admit I’m not sure – please check with the voting of...

Critical Issues

Forced Abortions & Sterilizations in Massachusetts?

Posted on by John W Gillis / 0 Comment

Occasionally, I read or hear about something so stunning that I feel like I’m having an out-of-body experience, watching from a detached vantage point as the world unfurls strangely in front of me. Yesterday afternoon, I had one of those experiences. I was at work, pausing to check the headlines, weather and traffic, when I saw the surreal headline: “Massachusetts Appeals Court rules that judge was wrong to order mentally ill woman to have an abortion and to then be sterilized”. Forced abortions and sterilizations in Massachusetts? Granted, the court-ord...

Politics & Economics

End of the Road for the Tax? errr, Penalty? errr,Tax? errr, Penalty?

Posted on by John W Gillis / 0 Comment

Quote of the Day for Monday, December 13th, 2010: Judge Henry E. Hudson, from page 38 of his ruling today invalidating ObamaCare’s "individual purchase mandate" provision: On careful review, this Court must conclude that Section 1502 of the Patient Prevention Affordable Care Act–specifically the Minimum Coverage Provision–exceeds the constitutional boundaries of congressional power. While a provision mandating that its subjects purchase healthcare “insurance” does represent an egregious accretion of state power, and a large nail in the co...

Learning

Mandating Two More Years of Vapid Futility?

Posted on by John W Gillis / 0 Comment

Quote of the Day for Sunday, December 12th, 2010: Boston Globe staff writer James Vaznis reporting on the latest round of hand-wringing concerning the performance of urban public school districts in the state: Within Boston, the state identified 40 percent of eighth-graders at risk of not earning a high school diploma with their classmates in 2014. But that estimate may be low, Boston public school officials said. The district’s graduation-tracking system, which, unlike the state’s, examines several years of data and grades, indicated that just 19 percen...

Politics & Economics

Victory & Grace: A Contrast in both Style & Substance

Posted on by John W Gillis / 1 Comment

There are lots of good reasons why lots of good people deeply dislike long-time U.S. Congressman Barney Frank; so many that exposing his victory speech this Tuesday night seems a bit like piling on. Yet, there it stands: a testimony to his character. Sore losers can be embarrassing enough, but what to make of such a sore winner? Here is Frank in full Barney mode: self-serving, self-pitying, self-absorbed, self-righteous; with nothing better to say after being elected to a 16th term (if my math is right) representing the people of Massachusetts than to ta...