After an expected vote for impeachment in the House of Representatives, the fate of Donald Trump will move to the U.S. Senate, where the prospects for the triumph of Constitutional values are bleak and where GOP stalwarts like Judiciary Committee Chair Lindsey Graham and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have already violated their oaths of impartial …
Continue reading U.S. Senate: Profiles in Courage or Cowardice?
Sometime in the next 24 to 72 hours, Time Magazine will be announcing its Person Of The Year. One of the early favorites at Ladbrokes online betting was Greta Thunberg, the eloquent Swedish climate change activist. She is clearly deserving, and the award could heighten focus on the looming existential crisis, but the bookies, if …
Continue reading Nancy Pelosi for Time Magazine’s Person of the Year
There is no better campaigner than Deval Patrick. He's charismatic, warm, visionary and inspirational. He appeals to our better sides, and has the kind of personality that really could help to heal the searing wounds of division. That he is African-American indicates his potential appeal to a constituency whose enthusiasm is essential to a Democratic …
Continue reading Deval Patrick: too little, too late or a ray of sunshine?
Donald Trump would like the world to think that the Democrats are so committed to impeaching him that the important work of the country is not being touched. But there are elected officials, including officials in high places, who are staying focused on work. At least on the House side. Hundreds of bills have passed …
Continue reading It doesn’t have to be all about impeachment
Massachusetts voters who care about climate change will want to return Ed Markey to the U.S. Senate. He has worked on the issue for decades, well before many of the rest of us were taking seriously the impact of fossil fuel-generated CO2 on the earth's atmosphere. If you understand the existential threat that confronts the …
Continue reading Ed Markey’s climate change work needed in US Senate
Neither Jill Stein or Tulsi Gabbard is a classic Manchurian candidate, destined to lead the US while controlled by a foreign power, but they are both at least-- to use the term devised by Vladimir Lenin to describe unwitting allies of nefarious propaganda campaigns – "useful idiots." They’ve been or are being used by Russian …
Continue reading Is Hillary Clinton playing into Trump’s and Putin’s hands?
The Massachusetts Governor was halfway through his second term. While things were going reasonably well, he was still dogged by dramatic shortcomings in the Department of Children and Families, fraud at the state drug lab, and incompetence with the online state health insurance system, and a growing unease among the public that, despite his personal …
Continue reading This week’s poll: Charlie Baker still coated with Teflon
Philosopher George Santayana famously said in 1905 that "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Winston Churchill liked the lesson so well that 43 years later he intoned, "Those who cannot learn from history are condemned to repeat it." Either wording, we get the idea. Would that Donald Trump were as …
Since becoming president Donald Trump has given members of Congress ample reasons to deem him unfit for office. Time and again his behavior has clearly met the Constitutional standard of high crimes and misdemeanors worthy of an impeachment trial. Only hard political calculations kept the House from taking action. Now, after revelations that President Trump …
Continue reading Impeachment inquiry: serious subject demands decorum
Photos and videos of about four million people around the world rallying last week to urge action on climate change were inspiring. Thankfully, global warming is no longer a marginal issue. From a quarter of a million demonstrating in New York City to young girls leaving their school in Kabul, Afghanistan despite the danger, to thousands …
Marjorie Arons-Barron 