February 3rd, 2012
by Marie
President Obama has had an ongoing focus on helping veterans and their families. In his State of the Union remarks last week President Obama announced his plan for American Jobs Act to spur police and firefighter hiring in 2012. This action as well as a plan patterned on FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps are targeted towards helping veterans. Today the details will be revealed for a $1 billion Veterans Job Corps that the White House says “will put up to 20,000 veterans to work over the next five years on projects to preserve and restore national parks and other federal, state and local lands.”
According to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar the Civilian Conservation Corps - established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Depression to put hundreds of thousands of the unemployed to work on projects in government parks and lands - serves as a “very good indicator” of what the administration hopes to accomplish with the Veterans Job Corps.
Read more here at the washingtonpost.com.
Read the White House press statement “President Obama’s Plan to Put Veterans Back to Work” here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room
Election 2012, Politics | 
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February 3rd, 2012
by Marie
In today’s New York Times op-ed colummist Paul Krugman puts former Massachusetts Governor and GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s lack of concern for the poor “in context.” His statement: “I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there.” has yet again got the pundits and his opponents all stirred-up. You can read Krugman’s take here and make your own “contextual” evaluation.
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January 25th, 2012
by Marie
Senator Eileen Donoghue shares her thoughts about her first year in office as the State Senator for the First Middlesex District in a January 2012 0n-line newsletter. Her district includes the communities of Lowell, Dunstable, Groton, Pepperell, Tyngsborough and Westford.
Read it all here.
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January 22nd, 2012
by Marie
Town Library – Precincts 4 & 4A (photo from Town of Tewksbury website)
In a move announced by mail by the Town Clerk and sanctioned by the Board of Selectmen, some Tewksbury voters will again be moving to a new location to cast their ballots. The former Town Clerk had consolidated the voting sites to two handicapped-accessible sites – the new Senior Center on Chandler Street and the fairly new Public Library also on Chandler Street but adjacent to Route 38. It was a move that proved to be controversial with some and did see a bit of a log-jam with snow piles and an outpouring of voters for the special election for the U. S. Senate back in January, 2010.
Tewksbury Senior Center – Precincts 1 & 2 (photo from the Tewksbury Patch)
In an information sheet tucked into the 2012 Census Form envelope, voters learned that Precincts 3 and 3A will be casting ballots at the Lowell Assembly of God Church on Andover Street/Rte. 133 and Precincts 2 and 2A will vote at the Recreation Center on Livingston Street. Added to the Clerk’s voter information notice - with redistricting at the most local level completed – was a list of fifty streets that have precinct changes.
Tewksbury residents and registered voters need to carefully check the Census mailer for this important information. Also, mail back the Census form ASAP.
Recreation Center – Precincts 2 & 2A (photo from the Tewksbury Patch)
Lowell Assembly of God Church – Precincts 3 & 3A (photo from church website)
Election 2012, Greater Lowell, History, Politics | 1 Comment »
January 21st, 2012
by Marie
The editorial in today’s Nashua Telegraph poses an interesting question – “Has the grand tradition of the New Hampshire primary come to an end?” Noting that the three candidates – Jon Huntsman, who bragged about holding 150 events in the state, Rick Santorum and Buddy Roemer (Buddy who?) – who campaigned in New Hampshire relentlessly fell way short in the New Hampshire primary* while Mitt Romney (albeit a New Hampshire landowner) and Ron Paul triumped in slots one and two. It seems that the retail politics enjoyed by New Hampshire voters over the last 60 years has been scooped by technology – the like of Twitter, Facebook and blogs – and definitely by Fox News and its endless candidate debates. The editorial posits:
It started with Nixon, or more accurately, with the 1960 televised debate between a handsome and charismatic John F. Kennedy and a sweating Richard Nixon, whose 5 o’clock shadow made him look like a crook.
Technology continued to change presidential election campaigns, and it’s doing so in ways that are likely to soon make New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary irrelevant. Worst of all, there may be nothing New Hampshire can do about its diminished importance but grin and bear it.
One wonders as well about the importance of Iowa and those caucuses!
Read the full editorial here at nashuatelegraph.com.
*Sidebar:
The state of New Hampshire has held a presidential primary since 1916, but its current importance didn’t emerge until 1952 when – after the state simplified its ballot access laws in 1949 seeking to boost voter turnout – General Dwight Eisenhower demonstrated his broad voter appeal by defeating Senator Robert A. Taft – widely known as ”Mr. Republican” – who had been favored to win the nomination and on the Democratic side when Senator Estes Kefauver defeated incumbent President Harry S. Truman – leading Truman to abandon his campaign for a second term of his own. In 1968 Senator Eugene McCarthy nearly defeated President Lyndon Johnson – sending a strong message that had Johnson declaring: ”I shall not seek, and will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.”
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January 21st, 2012
by Marie
MassMoments reminds us that on this day – January 21, 1861 – the Sixth Massachusetts Volunteer Militia was formally organized. In early January 1861, as civil war approached, the men of Massachusetts began to form volunteer militia units. Many workers in the textile cities of Lowell and Lawrence were among the first to join a new infantry regiment, the Sixth Massachusetts Volunteer Militia, when it was formally locally organized on January 21, 1861. The men met regularly to drill. In March, they were issued uniforms and Springfield rifles and told to be ready to assemble at any time. When Fort Sumter was attacked on April 12th, the men of the Massachusetts Sixth knew their days of drilling were over. And the rest is history – the history that is being remembered now as the Sesquicentennial of the American Civil War. There have been many posts on this blog about Lowell and the Civil War as part of the remembrance.
…in 1861, the Sixth Massachusetts Volunteer Militia was formally organized. With war approaching, men who worked in the textile cities of Lowell and Lawrence joined this new infantry regiment. They were issued uniforms and rifles; they learned to drill. They waited for the call. It came on April 15th, three days after the attack on Fort Sumter. They were needed to defend Washington, D.C.. The mood when they left Boston was almost festive. When they arrived in the border state of Maryland three days later, everything changed. An angry mob awaited them. In the riot that followed, 16 people lost their lives. Four were soldiers from Massachusetts. These men were the first combat fatalities of the Civil War.
Read the article
here at MassMoments.com.
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January 20th, 2012
by Marie
On this day – January 20, 1961 – John Fitzgerald Kennedy – son of Massachusetts – was sworn-in as the 35th President of the United States. As an eighteen-year old Irish, Catholic, Democratically-raised, Lowellian and avid Kennedy supporter, this was an important milestone in my life – details and impressions ever-remembered.
From History.com:
On January 20, 1961, on the newly renovated east front of the United States Capitol, John Fitzgerald Kennedy is inaugurated as the 35th president of the United States. It was a cold and clear day, and the nation’s capital was covered with a snowfall from the previous night. The ceremony began with a religious invocation and prayers, and then African-American opera singer Marian Anderson sang “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and Robert Frost recited his poem “The Gift Outright.” Kennedy was administered the oath of office by Chief Justice Earl Warren. During his famous inauguration address, Kennedy, the youngest candidate ever elected to the presidency and the country’s first Catholic president, declared that “the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans” and appealed to Americans to “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”
Read the full article here at history.com.
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January 16th, 2012
by Marie
Elizabeth Warren in Lowell, November 2011
In the January/February edition of Mother Jones Magazine, writer Tim Murphy talks about the revenge of Wall Street and its target Elizabeth Warren and her campaign for the U. S. Senate in Massachusetts. For her sin of taking on the banks, Warren is unrepentant and unbowed by the attack-mode and notes:
“I’ve gone toe-to-toe with some of the most powerful corporations out there in this country,” she says. “Toe-to-toe with the largest financial institutions. And toe-to-toe with people in our own government.” She pauses for effect and gives the table a light rap with her fist. “I don’t plan to stop. Ever.”
Read the full article here at motherjones.com.
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January 14th, 2012
by Marie
An article by Scott Helman in tomorrow’s Boston Sunday Globe Magazine – and on-line today – about the redistricting process and the results accepted by the legislature and signed into law by Governor Patrick is well worth a read. As someone who testified at one of the regional hearings (Lawrence) and who has been relocated as a constituent from the 5thCD – now the 3rdCD - into the 6th CD – I find this article an interesting look at the process and what it might really mean about the current state of politics in the Commonwealth.
From the article:
For the first time in decades, the Legislature managed to create new state legislative and US congressional districts that, by and large, put the voters’ interests above the politicians’.
Read it here at boston.com. – “Mass. voting maps reflect State House evolution”
Take a look at our past blog post and comments from MassMoments on the history of the gerrymander: http://www.richardhowe.com/2011/02/11/massmoments-birth-of-the-gerrymander/
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January 13th, 2012
by Marie
The next regular breakfast meeting of Greater Lowell Area Democrats - the first in the New Year - will be held tomorrow – Saturday January 14, 2012 – at 8am SHARP at the Independence Grill at the Radisson Hotel in Chelmsford.
The regular agenda will include updates and discussion on: ward/town caucuses for the 2012 convention delegate selection (training at the meeting); the race for U.S Senate nomination; the Presidential Primary locally and nation-wide; dates and deadlines for local ward and town committee reorganization; redistricting results; national convention delegate selection caucuses – and other topics on the minds of members.
At 9am there will be a caucus training/discussion session for the 2012 Massachusetts Democratic Convention delegate selection caucuses scheduled to be held locally between February 11 and February 20 to be followed by a brief discussion and training session for use of Votebuilder. It’s important to review all the rules, discuss the minor changes approved by the DSC, and answer any questions about the process.
GLAD Members, Associates and interested Democrats are invited to attend the GLAD meetings along with elected and appointed officials.
Directions: Independence Grill at the Radisson Hotel – Exit 34/Rte. 495 – take right off Rte 110 at the hotel sign / parking in front and behind the hotel.
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