Seth Gitell is offering a pizza from John's Bakery in Roslindale (you don't want to miss that) to whoever guesses the name of the anonymous State House source of a particularly vacuous quote in today's Adrian Walker column.
Patrick's first budget proposal, which balances the books in part by assuming the state will save $256 million by forcing people to pay for health insurance.
Dan Kennedy is dubious.
John Keith sees a possible attempt at an end run against the constitutional ban against a graduated income tax.
Why do so many sports reporters fill reams of paper complaining about how the media cover things? Isn't that complaining about yourself? And who wants to read that? Bruce Allen ponders Tony Massarotti's contribution to the ouevre, in which Massarotti wonders why Tom Brady's baby is getting more press attention than some divorce case that may or may not involve Bill Bellichick. Yes, it's terrible when the media does that, isn't it, Mr.
Carpundit, no fan of Deval Patrick, won't criticize him for his Cadillac:
... Is it the Boston Herald creating this controversy, or are state Republicans really trying to use this as an issue? Because the former is rational. The latter is just stupid.
Devone Tucker asserts that Deval Patrick owes some of his success in November to Jimmy Kelly.
Three plucky Billionaires for Bush went to Governor Patrick's Inauguration to see for themselves whether or not they will be favored in the new administration.
It turned ugly.
But at least they garnered some press coverage before they were forced to flee to their limos!
For details and photos, kindly perambulate to the Boston Billionaires' Blog at http://bostonb4b.blo...
Specifically, the state's relationship with its 351 cities and towns? David Bernstein thinks so:
"As your governor, I have broad responsibility for what goes right or wrong, but far less authority than I need to influence the course of either."
What he's saying here is that he intends -- soon -- to introduce pieces of legislation, either seperately or with the budget, to significantly change the way our state government functions.
Scott Allen Miller is liveblogging the Patrick inauguration:
Every time Patrick mentions something about (increased) education (spending) he gets interrupted by cheers and applause causing me to wonder how many Boston-area school kids had substitute teachers today...
Mitt Romney had Romney Is a Fraud (which got in one last jab yesterday). The Hub Politics boys hope to replicate that for Deval Patrick with Deval Patrick Watch, which declares him unfit to take the oath of office.
Meanwhile, Dems for Romney is not quite what its name would suggest. It's a Blue Mass. Group production.
That's what the Globe's Political Intelligence will be doing over the next couple of days.
Nothing against Deval Patrick - I voted for the guy, after all - but the Globe's Bostonian of the Year doesn't actually live in Boston. Maybe they should have named him Miltonian of the Year? OK, OK, makes more sense than Time's inane decision to make me person of the year, but still.
State Senate president sheepishly says Oopsies, whatever was I thinking? - or words to that effect.
Outraged Liberal: They must have had a special on crow in the Statehouse snack bar.
The Outraged Liberal has been doing a lot of pondering on that over the past couple of days.
First, he notes that Daisuke Matsuzaka was not the only person to come to Massachusetts from the Far East yesterday - our Soon-to-be-ex Governor also landed back, but you wouldn't know that from the local press.
Deval Patrick was going to address several hundreds high-school students on the importance of civic engagement at the Tremont Temple on Jan. 4, but organizers agreed to move the event somewhere else after learning the Temple has also hosted events such as Liberty Sunday (the national anti-gay, anti-non-fundie broadcast).
So? What's wrong with having a representative from one of the world's largest technology companies helping to advise Governor-elect Patrick on technology?
Andy Updegrove reminds us that Brian Burke, the Microsoft regional director for public affairs, led the fight against the state's effort to standardize on a document format that could have meant a loss of business for Microsoft:
David Kravitz of Blue Mass. Group is co-chair of Deval Patrick's civic-engagagement:
... Our group been asked to consider three general "principles" in going about our task:
Converting the grassroots campaign into a way of governing;
Increasing civic engagement; and
Rebuilding communities throughout the state. ...
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