State & Local Politics

The answer, of course, is they both stink.

The latest corruption news in Chicago features Dorothy Brown, 56, currently the clerk of the Cook County Circuit Court, and a candidate for Cook County board president, who, shall we say, encouraged her employees (she presides over more than 2,100 of them) to give her cash gifts for her birthday and for Christmas. When Chicago Tribune reporters started to ask questions, she stopped. Read more...

As The Wall Street Journal points out in an opinion this morning, this is a good day not only for Scott Brown, the new senator from Massachusetts, but for Mitt Romney as well. Glenn Beck doesn’t trust Brown, he says. But with Brown toting friends like the popular former governor of Massachusetts, William Weld, John McCain and Romney around on his bus, it might not be such a good day for Glenn Beck. Read more...

This past Saturday, Robert “Bob” McDonnell topped off a crackerjack campaign by becoming the Commonwealth of Virginia’s 71st governor. He is carrying with him the hopes of Virginians ready for pragmatic solutions to their state’s problems, but also the aspirations of his party, which is desperate for a comeback this year. In a statement congratulating McDonnell, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said, “Bob McDonnell’s campaign for governor should serve as a shining example for all Republicans looking for success in 2010.” There has even been talk of the new governor cutting his term short to enter national politics and run for president in 2012. Read more...

If the sound of ghostly laughter is heard in Massachusetts these days as this campaign rolls on, with Martha Coakley self-portrayed as the guardian of justice and civil liberties, there is good reason.
— Dorothy Rabinowitz, Wall Street Journal

With all due respect, that is not Ted Kennedy’s seat and it is not the Democrats’ seat. It is the seat of the people of Massachusetts.
— Scott Brown, candidate for United States senator in Massachusetts

I like to point up and explain to my kids with pride when we drive through Providence that their grandfather put the beacon light in the Hancock building, the tallest building in Providence at the time. And when we drive through Fall River to tell them that he was the electrician in the last factory to head south. He turned the lights out.

Turns out that the New York state Senate is taking a genuine leadership role in using the Internet seriously to increase government accountability and transparency.

Healthcare reform that started as a noble and needed legislation has become a trough of bribes, deals and loopholes ... California’s congressional delegation should either vote against this bill that is a disaster for California or get in there and fight for the same sweetheart deal that Sen. Nelson of Nebraska got for the Cornhusker State.
— Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jan. 5, 2010

As divisions appear among conservatives about state sovereignty, it should be recalled that the Governator was the first to sense the positive charge and the awakening potential of state and regional identity long before the train left the station. Early on, Arnold challenged the feds on environmental issues and brought with him other original thinkers like Jodi Rell, governor of Connecticut.

The Nancy and Harry show suggests a mad adolescent rush, like in those classic Hollywood B-movies where the parents go out of town and the teens take over the house (read: the Senate) for the weekend. Or the drunken euphoria of Billy Wilder’s “The Lost Weekend.” Or “Animal House,” maybe, staring Barney Frank as John Belushi.

There was a time — before Starbucks, before Bill and Hillary, before the Rolling Stones — when liberals supported working-class people. No longer. But back then no one represented the strong and fearless heartbeat of American working people like West Virginia coal miners. They were the stuff of legend chronicled in folklore, bluegrass and folk music. In the ’50s we’d listen in pained silence for word about mine disasters, even way up here in New England. We shared in the lives of the miners. If they could find the strength to survive in the mines, we could survive on the surface. They were the canaries of our own desire. No longer, as the recent occurrence at Sundial, W.Va., makes clear.

I was horrified to read this morning that it is increasingly commonplace in California to treat children diagnosed with deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, with marijuana. With California’s pot industry pushing into the mainstream, experts say marijuana prescriptions for children are skyrocketing.

Truly, this is horrifying. First, marijuana produces many of the same effects in users — short-term memory problems and inattention — as those associated with ADHD. Get it? Pot actually causes many of the effects that you want a treatment for ADHD to alleviate.