Thanks to CNN and Fox, Thursday's SCOTUS announcement was an emotional roller coaster. Like the Dewey-beats-Truman headlines, they both were so eager to be first that they were wrong. Shame on them. This time, print media at least made a stab at reading the Supreme Court decision before pronouncing the individual mandate dead. And, of course, it wasn't. …
Continue reading Health care – the end of the beginning and the beginning of hard work
That whoosh you hear is the sound of money, gobs of it, flying from wellheeled donors to political candidates and "independent" committees on behalf of candidates. The roar is increasingly deafening especially when the money is coming from corporations and superPAC's (and, to a lesser extent, labor unions. Corporations, Mitt Romney explains to us, are …
Mitt Romney says that President Obama's recent move not to deport illegal immigrants brought here as children was motivated by politics. Now there's a surprise! That's a little bit like Captain Renault in Casablanca saying "I'm shocked, shocked to find that there is gambling is going on in here." Of course it was political, shrewdly political. And it …
Continue reading Obama’s executive order: the Dream Act lives on
I first met Bea Barron when I was a political reporter and she was selling ads for The Newton Times in the 1970's. She was a longtime community activist who had worked for Newton Fair Housing, marched with Dr. King when he was in Boston, volunteered at the local NAACP headquarters and raised money for the …
Forget Romney and Obama for now. The greatest immediate impact on the U.S. economy, beyond the control of either nominee, could be what happens Sunday in the Greek run-off election. On that day, millions of Greek voters will choose from among a group of flawed and untrustworthy leaders a party (or coalition of parties) to lead …
Former football star Brian Banks of Long Beach, California got a really raw deal. What happened to him is shocking and outrageous. A stupid, unthinking woman accused him of rape. Except in 2003, Wanetta Gibson,15, was a stupid, unthinking girl. Back then, Banks, a young black man, was a high school senior and star football player, hoping to play pro …
The Boston Herald drumbeating investigation of Elizabeth Warren’s claim to having Cherokee blood keeps on. In yesterday’s installment, the paper published excerpts from a 1984 cookbook called Pow Wow Chow, edited by Warren’s cousin, who compiled recipes from “Five Tribes families.” The story has gone viral on right wing websites. But so what? The Five …
Continue reading Let’s chuck the Cherokee fixation and deal with today’s challenges
Apparently, virtually everyone born in Oklahoma is part Native American. According to Oklahoman Sarah Burns, a writer for Politico, “Most families that are at least three generations Okie are related to one tribe or another.” In fact, adds Burns, “the current chief of the Cherokee Tribe matches [Senate candidate Elizabeth] Warren — he also is …
Continue reading Warren’s ancestry fumble sidetracks her campaign
Mass. Treasurer Steve Grossman’s father used to quote Baltimore Orioles legendary third baseman Brooks Robinson, who often said, “Make optimism a way of life.” And that’s the attitude that Grossman reflects, predicting to the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce today that the Commonwealth will come out of the recession better than it went in. If …
A fresh Washington Post/Pew Research Center poll shows that while Americans feel really good about the demise of Osama bin Laden, few think we’re home free when it comes to the threat of terrorism. Seven in ten believe the world is more secure, but a scant five percent think that terrorism is no longer a …
Continue reading American opinion in line with Obama administration message on bin Laden
Marjorie Arons-Barron 