MA Gov. Patrick meets with Fidelity Investments, says he didn’t discuss Fidelity’s tax breaks “at any depth at all.” Fidelity’s earmarked share of the $300 million a year we keep giving away in faux “job creation” corporate income tax breaks didn’t merit in depth discussion? Even when they cut MA jobs? Guess he’s saving his depth for cuts to local aid to our cities, towns, and schools! http://ow.ly/4mRrH
Continue reading Gov. Patrick gives Fidelity his deepest consideration. Their tax breaks? Not so much.Deval Patrick
While Bloomberg News was boasting that Chevron might be able to muscle its way out of paying a cent for the environmental damage that Texaco wrought upon Ecuador, Democracy Now! was reporting on the hypocrisy of Chevron’s legal maneuvers, led for years by our own Deval Patrick. Which side are you on, Governor Patrick?
Continue reading Chevron ordered to pay $17 billion for Ecuador pollutiongreat op-ed by Max Page and Michael Ash, UMass Amherst:
AMHERST – “Shared sacrifice.” You will hear the governor say it every time he talks about the budget. It is the phrase used by Charles Murphy, chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, when he unveiled a budget that cuts local aid – schools, police and fire, libraries, parks – by $234 million, and public higher education by $132 million.
It was echoed by Michael Widmer of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Association when he endorsed the House’s budget; “They (cities and towns) need to share in the pain given our fiscal realities.”
“Shared sacrifice” must poll well in focus groups. But it is a lie and a fraud.
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http://www.gazettenet.com/2010…
Continue reading The myth of shared sacrificeDespicable stances of our elected leaders, in crisis after crisis and policy after policy, is becoming nauseatingly dependable. The voters who elect people like Deval Patrick, a corporate lawyer for Texaco who relentlessly fought the people of Ecuador who were struggling for justice and relief (see the trailer for Crude, a documentary about this legal battle, below), play a role in making these abuses an accepted part of our system. Likewise, voters who got lost in the hype of Barack Obama’s heavily funded grassroots campaign chose to ignore the corporate agenda he was mobilizing them for, and failed to hold their favored candidate to any sort of truly progressive standards. Both corporate parties have demonstrated nothing but the desire to put corporate profits ahead of the public interest, yet delusions of something otherwise continue to dominate the day.
The latest travesty, in a long, steady stream of them, is the little-reported fact that Obama’s administration granted 27 exemptions from environmental review to oil companies in the Gulf of Mexico — the very same categorical exclusions from environmental review granted to BP’s disastrous Deepwater Horizon project. Once again, McClatchy newspapers find themselves at the vanguard of real journalism, with the mainstream media ignoring the story:
Since Spill, Feds Have Given 27 Waivers to Oil Companies in Gulf
Published on Saturday, May 8, 2010 by McClatchy Newspapers
by Marisa Taylor
From GreenChange.org:
Jill Stein is running for Governor of Massachusetts. Green Change is proud to endorse her campaign. Her record of public service and passionate advocacy for healthy communities makes her an exceptional candidate for governor.
As Governor of Massachusetts, Jill will make extraordinary commitments to creating green jobs, pursuing real health care reform, saving public education, enacting fairer taxes, and cleaning up the environment.
In the likely four-way race, Jill Stein potentially could be elected governor with as little as 26% of the vote, which translates to roughly 800,000 votes. This is not beyond reach considering that she won 18% of the vote as a candidate for Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 2006.
Jill Stein refuses to take lobbyist money, and vows to end the “pay-to-play” politics that dominates the Massachusetts state legislature. Her campaign is eligible for 1-to-1 public matching funds for every dollar raised over $125,000, meaning that as soon as she raises $250,000 from supporters, she’ll be able to mount a half-million-dollar campaign. She plans to mobilize thousands of grassroots volunteers across the state to bring their message of a healthy Green future to the people of Massachusetts.
Help Jill earn public financing for her campaign by making a contribution at http://bit.ly/jillsteindonate.
Continue reading Green Change endorses Jill Stein for Governor of MassachusettsHey Green Mass Group,
I’ve heard a fair amount of talk about how Deval Patrick has been a big disappointment, and how he foreshadowed Obama by promising big change, then delivering more of the same.
My question is: what beef do progressive Bay Staters have with Deval Patrick? I’m writing about Jill Stein’s challenge to politics as usual, and some specifics about the incumbent’s failings would be useful.
Sadly, it’s not easy to do this kind of research on one’s own, since most media outlets like to sum up the progressive viewpoint with one-liners like “The far left has complained that the serious centrist governor is not far enough to the left.”
So what can you give me?
Continue reading So, how about that Deval Patrick fella?This was written originally for a national audience, so please excuse me if I treat the reader like they know nothing about Massachusetts politics.
Grace Ross, who ran in 2006 as the Green Party’s candidate for governor of Massachusetts, is now running in the Democratic primary for the same office, against incumbent governor Deval Patrick. “I wasn’t planning to run again,” stated Ross, “but things got worse. Things got worse for regular people.”
Continue reading Former Green Party candidate to challenge Mass. gov. Deval Patrick as a Democrat