Nice write up of yesterday’s Green-Rainbow Party state convention in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette:

WORCESTER – At their state convention at the First Unitarian Church Saturday, Green-Rainbow Party leaders expressed hope that national discontent with the major parties could lead to their long-sought breakthrough.

“The Democrats and Republicans really have a circling firing squad here, and are continuing to take each other down,” said Dr. Jill E. Stein, party co-chairman and 2012 presidential candidate. “It’s really created the opening we have known about for quite some time.”

The Green-Rainbow Party of Massachusetts is part of the larger national Green Party, and Saturday’s event drew party members from all over New England.

“I think the Green Party is on the way,” said Linda Thompson, co-chairwoman of the Connecticut Green Party. “We have to think big.”

Read the whole thing here.

Nationally, the Green Party won some important victories and took some small steps forward. Most importantly, the Green mayor of Richmond, CA, Gayle McLaughlin, won her bid for City Council despite Chevron’s massive campaign against her. And New York gubernatorial candidate Howie Hawkins received nearly 5% of the statewide vote, making the Green Party THE third party in New York. Other highlights across the country have been posted by Green Party Watch.

In Massachusetts, the Green-Rainbow Party regained major party status on November 4th when each of its three statewide candidates surpassed the 3% threshold, each gaining more votes and higher percentages than the well- and self-financed Evan Falchuk campaign, which also received more media coverage. Since Falchuk’s campaign also surpassed the 3% threshold, his United Independent Party will join the official party ranks along with the Green-Rainbow Party.

Discrepancies between federal and state recognition of political parties along with Secretary of the Commonwealth Bill Galvin’s apparent contempt for the Green-Rainbow Party have made it difficult to consistently organize a progressive political alternative to the Democrat/Republican national duopoly, or one-party rule in Massachusetts. The latest example was Galvin’s dismissal of Green-Rainbow Party candidate Jason Lowenthal’s nomination papers to challenge incumbent Democratic Congressman Michael Capuano, who went on to run unopposed on the November ballot. Galvin, with a proud history of ducking debates despite being the state’s elected overseer of elections, took a cheap shot at the Green-Rainbow Party for the party’s stubborn refusal to continue on in electoral politics:

From The Republican (Springfield):

Secretary of State William Galvin said the state will be required to print primary ballots for all the parties, even if there are no competitive races. In the past, the state has used paper, rather than the more expensive cardstock, to print ballots for the Green-Rainbow Party or other third parties. “We’ll have to kill many trees,” Galvin told reporters on Monday. “We do this all the time with the Greens, which is ironic.”

Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think? Coming from the man who mailed all registered Green-Rainbow Party voters, twice now — at taxpayers’ expense — postcards that made it sound like the Green-Rainbow Party no longer existed (it did, both as a political designation and as the state affiliate of a federally recognized political party) and that if they wanted to vote in a primary they would have to change their registration?  Or the man with so much contempt for the democratic process that he oversees that “scheduling difficulties” and various other phony excuses have prevented him from agreeing to debates against his opponents, other than last-minute sham debates. Spare us the sermonizing, Bill.

On a more positive note, GRP State Auditor candidate MK Merelice’s letter to the Brookline Tab, does a nice job of summarizing the highlights for the Green-Rainbow Party slate and the pockets of strong, local support they received, so I’ll leave you with that:

For the first time since Jill Stein ran as the Massachusetts Green Party candidate for Governor in 2002, endorsed by the Rainbow Coalition Party, the merged Green-Rainbow Party is not running a candidate for the Corner Office.

But that doesn’t mean that the party is sitting this election out. Instead, three candidates have put themselves forward for statewide office, receiving the party’s endorsement and running as a slate. As we announced earlier, MK Merelice, Danny Factor, and  Ian Jackson are running for the constitutional positions of State Auditor, Secretary of the Commonwealth, and State Treasurer, respectively. Needing 5,000 certified signatures to get on the ballot, the slate had collected 6,646 raw signatures as of July 4, and is aiming for 9,000 by July 27th to protect against challenges by the Democrats and Republicans. For details on how to help ensure the slate makes it onto the ballot, see www.green-rainbow.org.

While Stein is the party’s female co-chair, she opted to continue organizing at the national level, following up on her 2012 campaign as the Presidential candidate of the Green Party of the U.S. along with Vice Presidential running mate Cheri Honkala. The Green-Rainbow Party needs 3% of the vote in one of their statewide races in order to regain major party status in Massachusetts, which would result in ballot access for a Presidential ticket in 2016.

How do you, dear readers, feel about not having a Green-Rainbow Party gubernatorial candidate this year? How do you feel about the chance of having a slate of candidates for Auditor, Secretary and Treasurer instead?  What do you think any of this means for independent politics in Massachusetts?

The Green-Rainbow Party is fielding three statewide candidates for the November ballot in an effort to re-establish major party status in Massachusetts and to give voters a choice for badly needed reforms.

Since we last reported, MK Merelice has joined the statewide campaign as the GRP’s candidate for State Auditor. She joins Danny Factor who is running for Secretary of the Commonwealth, and State Treasurer candidate Ian Jackson. Notably, Merelice’s campaign team is bolstered by former State Representative and Rainbow Coalition founder Mel King as her campaign manager, and Nat Fortune, the 2010 Green-Rainbow Party candidate for State Auditor as her treasurer.

First, the bad news: our government is assassinating people based loosely upon the whereabouts and history of their SIM cards. Without even confirming that their intended target is indeed in possession of this card, the United States government is targeting drone missile strikes based on this data.

Now, the good news: A new media organization, First Look Media has just launched its first “digital magazine” called The Intercept that is actually investigating and reporting on these crimes by our federal government. Read their welcome message here.

First Look is the media and technology venture started by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar along with investigative reporters Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, and Jeremy Scahill. Here are Greenwald and Scahill talking about it on Democracy Now!: