Charles Pierce (from Mass?) wrote in Esquire last night that we here gave Scott Brown some bad advice. Here's the post.
Are these people serious? The way for Scott Brown to seize control of a statewide election in Massachusetts is for him to embrace the National Republican Platform? The one that promises to keep the U.N. from using Agenda 21 from seizing all our golfs? The one that argues for a concept of the Constitution that would not have been out of place at John C. Calhoun's groaning board? The one that denies the right to choose to a woman even if she has been raped? That National Republican Platform? I have my problems with Scott Brown as my senator, but I have never wished a garish public suicide on the man.
Have these people not yet figured out exactly why the word "Republican" appears in Brown's TV ads exactly the same amount of times as the words, "smegma," "leprosy," and "Popocatepetyl"? Also, too: this. Holy mother of blog, boys, get a little smarter than that.
Pierce seems to be one of those helpful people that want us to continue to be democrat-lite, to not offer an alternative vision of governance to the people of the Commonwealth. "Isn't that special."
2. Brown-Warren remains tied
Last night, at the Merrimack Valley Tea Party, I spoke. Someone asked me for my take on the Brown Warren race. This was about two hours before the UMass Lowell - Boston Herald poll came out. I told the person, the race remains tied, the race will remain tied until election day, and it will be won on the ground.
Lo and behold the poll came out a couple of hours later and confirmed this. The poll shows that Brown has a four point lead amongst likely voters. This is in the margin of error, as the polling showing Warren up earlier in the week mostly was.
The second part of my answer is that we need to be on the ground. Talking to the people we know, in our neighborhoods. That's what is going to win this. I'm knock knock knocking on indy's doors this weekend, are you?
Intelligence sources are saying that the apparent mastermind of the attack is someone Barack Obama has considered an "ally" in the past. Breitbart has the story.
Tonight, Bret Baier of Fox News reported that intelligence sources believe that the mastermind of the al Qaeda attack on our Libyan consulate is one Sufyan Ben Qumu. Qumu was a tank driver in the Libyan army; he was a drug addict and spent time in prison. From there, he fled to Egypt, then went to Afghanistan and joined up with Osama Bin Laden. He later joined the Taliban, and was captured in Pakistan, then turned over to the United States. Qumu was released from Guantanamo Bay in 2007 to the Qaddafi-led Libyan government, on the condition that Libya and the US could reach a "satisfactory agreement ... that allows access to detainee and/or access to exploited intelligence." In 2008, as the Qaddafi government made nice with the Libyan rebels, Qumu was released.
That's where the story gets even more interesting. The Obama administration promptly labeled Qumu an "ally of sorts," according to the New York Times - that despite the fact that as of 2005, he was known as a "medium to high risk ... likely to pose a threat to the US, its interests and allies." What made him an ally? According to the Times, that status change was due to the Obama administration's "remarkable turnabout resulting from shifting American policies rather than any obvious change in Mr. Qumu." As a leader of the Libyan rebels, head of the Darnah Brigade, Qumu received support from NATO. And unnamed Western observers, according to the Times, felt that Qumu wasn't a real threat: "We're more worried about Al Qaeda infiltration from outside than the indigenous ones ... Most of them have a local agenda so they don't present as much as a threat to the West."
4. Children's Hospital to cut 255 jobs. A byproduct of Jones-Patrick care
Jones-Patrick care, passed earlier this year calls for surcharges to be placed on good hospitals. One of those hospitals is most probably Children's Hospital. How is Children's going to respond to its need to trim costs to pay for the surcharge? If you guessed by cutting 255 jobs, you'd be right. The Boston Business Journal has the story.
Children's Hospital sent a message to employees which laid out some of the challenges the hospital faces and what's driving its need to reduce costs. The memo read in part:
"We are confronting a declining pediatric population in Massachusetts, a shift to lower-reimbursed outpatient care and observation stays, cuts to our Medicaid rates and Graduate Medical Education training program and flattening NIH support. Payers and the new accountable care organizations (ACOs) are increasingly directing care to our lower-cost competitors."
The "new ACO's" helped cause these. Where did they come from? That's right Jones-Patrick care.
5. Debate tonight
There is a Scott Brown - Elizabeth Warren debate tonight in Boston at WBZ. The debate will be on at 7PM on WBZ TV-4. I will be hosting a live stream here at Red Mass Group.
