Five things you should know today, July 30, 2012

by: Rob "EaBo Clipper" Eno

Mon Jul 30, 2012 at 06:29:42 AM EDT

The crony capitalist friendly Green Energy bill has made its way out of conference committee and is scheduled for a vote in both chambers today.  The State House News Services is reporting:

The conferees also adopted a House-designed rate plan directing the DPU to spread rates more equitably for commercial, industrial and residential customers, rather than asking one class of customer to shoulder the burden.

With an average electric rate in Massachusetts of 14.24 cents per kilowatt hour, the seventh highest in the country and more than 4 cents higher than the national average, state officials have discussed reducing energy prices as a way to remove an impediment to job growth.

"I think it does what we set out to do, which is continue to make progress when it comes to clean energy and energy efficiency, but do so with more of a focus on the most cost effective way to do that. We didn't sacrifice our environmental goals, but we turned more of an eye toward the cost and what we can to begin the process to moderate that," Downing said.

2. Rep. Moran has used staff to collect donations before

Last Thursday Red Mass Group stopped by the fundraiser hosted by Bob DeLeo for Representative Michael Moran (D-Brigtho).  We put up a picture of the gift basket, and asked the question if the person collecting the money was a state employee.  Well it seems that question was very germane.  You see Representative Moran has a history of using public employees to collect money for him.  He was called out by OCPF for doing just that.

This office has completed its review of information we received stating that a member of your State House staff collected campaign contributions at the entrance of a fundraising event held on your behalf on March 8, 2009, and also at a similar event last year.

The 17 bounced Liberty Delegates, who were pledged to Mitt Romney, filed their challenges last week.  The Boston Globe has the story.

Sixteen Republicans elected to represent Massachusetts at the national convention in Tampa next month have filed a formal challenge with the Republican National Committee, saying they were unfairly disqualified based on state GOP leaders' concerns about their fealty to presumptive presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

The group of delegates - originally supporters of Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul - were elected in April caucuses at which they unexpectedly defeated many of Romney's chosen delegates, but they have been since disqualified by state party officials.

"In short, the Massachusetts Republican Party changed the rules," the delegates wrote in a letter to the national committee.

4. Elizabeth Warren begging for video views post goes viral

The post this weekend about Elizabeth Warren begging for video views via email, has gone viral, thanks to Glenn Reynolds at InstaPundit.com.  At around 8:45 PM on Saturday evening, Reynolds linked to the story with a simple post: Warren Begging for Video Views.   Within an hour and fifteen minutes close to 2,000 people viewed the post from around the country.  Since that time 5,628 people were referred. Below is the anatomy of an "instalanche".

5. Tim Cahill due in court

Tim Cahill and his trusted aide Scott Campbell will be in court at 2:45 in a hearing on their corruption charges, according to the State House News Service.

Cahill, the former State Treasurer, is charged with using public resources to campaign.