February 22, 2021
Hello Good People, Biased news media outlets, and Corrupt Politicians (& Greedy lobbyists),
I really enjoyed reading the Commonwealth's news email about Ben Downing's run for Governor of Massachusetts next year of 2022. It is too bad that our native hometown of Pittsfield (Mass.) tells its youth to leave the area because of its distressed local economy with a drastically shrinking middle class. I have a Master of Public Administration from U Mass Amherst (May 1999), and the first thing I learned about being a community leader is that the people who live there are the most valuable resource, which means that politicians and business leaders are supposed to invest in the working class people so they are able to earn a living wage, shop at local businesses, pay municipal taxes and fees, and invest in their properties and/or small businesses. My view of Massachusetts, which I studied during my at graduate school at U Mass, is that there are a lot of economically unequal communities in classist Massachusetts where median incomes range from well over 6-figures to under $30,000 per year. Some of Massachusetts wealthy suburban public schools districts around Boston have better educational performance results than even the well-to-do private schools that guarantee most wealthy family's children acceptance into an Ivy League college, such as Harvard University. The past Governors of Massachusetts have mostly been multimillionaires, including Willard Mitt Romney who is worth around $300 million, and William Floyd Weld, who was born into an old wealth, blue blood aristocratic family who bequeathed him with an $80 million trust fund that goes back to the Mayflower. I believe that Ben Downing would be a lot more representative of the people who actually live and work in Massachusetts than Mitt Romney and Bill Weld.
- Jonathan Melle
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"For Downing, politics are personal"
By Michael Jonas – CommonWealth reporter - February 22, 2021
On paper, Ben Downing looks very much like someone who might launch a run for governor while still in his 30s, which is what the 39-year-old Democrat did earlier this month, becoming the first declared candidate in the 2022 race.
His dad was a popular elected official in Pittsfield where Downing grew up, elected four times as Berkshire County district attorney. After college, Downing worked for several members of the state’s congressional delegation in Washington before mounting a winning campaign for state Senate at age 24 (he had turned 25 by Election Day) and going on to serve 10 years in the Legislature before leaving in 2017 to spend several years working the clean energy field.
“It looks like a straight line on paper,” Downing said of his aggressive political rise on this week’s episode of The Codcast. He says it’s actually been anything but.
He wasn’t sure what he’d do after graduating from Providence College and wound up following a college roommate to Washington, where he eventually landed staff positions working with several Massachusetts congressmen. He ran for Senate in 2006, he says, not because of his father’s elected office, but because of his tragic death from a heart attack in 2003, at age 52.
“I don't know if I ever would have run for the state Senate if my father was still alive,” he said. “One of the reasons I was able to muster the confidence to run was that one of the first public speeches I ever had to give was my father's eulogy. And when you've stood in front of a church of your family and friends when your whole world is shattered and you can get through that, then speaking to a local Democratic town committee, to a neighborhood association, to a big crowd isn't all that daunting anymore.”
The second way his father’s death fueled his run for office, Downing says, was by witnessing the outpouring of support his family got from the community in Pittsfield, a place that has seen its economic fortunes flag amid a steady exodus of young people heading elsewhere for better opportunity after college.
“That community was always there for us,” Downing said. “And yet that's the same community that, people told me growing up, had nothing to offer us that we ought to study hard and get away from it. And that was part of the reason I wanted to run, because I looked at those people who were there for us, who lined the streets for my dad, and said they deserve better than to be written off. And I know that's true of communities like Pittsfield across Massachusetts.”
He would come to appreciate that community support again in 2012 with the tragic sudden death of his younger brother Nate at age 26 from a genetic heart defect.
“All loss is unique and painful regardless of the time and the circumstances, and too many people have had to deal with that over this last year,” he said. “For me, the impact was to deepen my empathy.” He said the experiences have also made him “more impatient” and “less tolerant of the idea that we can just put off trying to do good work, put off trying to solve big problems to the next year, to the next session, to the next decade. Which too often is what happens in Massachusetts.”
On issues facing the state, Downing cuts a decidedly progressive profile, advocating a more activist role for state government and not shying away from the idea of new taxes, particularly on those most able to pay, to support more initiatives. As for Charlie Baker’s leadership, he faults the governor for not advancing bold solutions to longstanding problems.
“Charlie Baker is a good man and a dedicated public servant,” he said. “He's someone who I disagree with on the issues. I think he's someone who has accumulated significant political capital, and the instances, the examples of him using that capital to address those big challenges, to address climate and economic and racial justice are few and far between.”
Downing, who now lives in East Boston with his wife and two young sons, shows an admirable reluctance to “Monday morning quarterback” and attack Baker’s early moves during the pandemic. But “there aren’t any excuses for where we land right now,” he says of the state’s troubled vaccine rollout.
You can think of the governor as having two big roles – setting out a broad vision through his or her political philosophy, while also tending to the day-to-day functioning and mechanics of state government.
Downing, however, pushes back on that. “They’re not silos,” he said. “I don't think anyone could have foreseen a pandemic on the scale and with the impact of COVID-19. But we knew that tough times would come, even if we were in a boom back from the previous recession. We know there are these ups and downs. For me, that's where our leadership has come up short, whether in the corner office or in the Legislature – taking the steps in those more stable times that will take the edge off the worst parts of the downturn.”
“If you just manage in the day-to-day,” Downing said, “at some point you're chasing the day-to-day and you lose a feel for the broader goal and the broader set of principles and values you're trying to work towards.”
This week on the Codcast, we talk with Ben Downing the first declared candidate for governor in the 2022 race.
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March 2, 2021
Re: My web letter to candidate for Governor of Massachusetts Ben Downing
My dad, Bob Melle, is a former Berkshire County Commissioner (1997 - mid-2000). We went to Beacon Hill and spoke to legislative committees about Berkshire County not having real representation in Boston. My dad said that the multibillion dollar cost overruns in Boston's "Big Dig" could cover Berkshire County Government for over 5,000 years. I told Boston lawmakers that they were wrong to target Berkshire County Government for inefficiencies when Boston's "Big Dig" costs many billions of dollars, leaks millions of gallons of water everyday, and later claimed the lives of innocent people. Then State Representative Marty Walsh, now Boston's outgoing Mayor, looked at me with annoyed eyes, and said to me that I would say that about Boston's "Big Dig". Marty Walsh told me that I already shared my thoughts with him when I emailed the entire Massachusetts State Legislature last summer (1998). Marty Walsh then proclaimed that Boston's "Big Dig" is an engineering marvel. After Boston abolished Berkshire County Government, they put Pontoosuc Lake in a state accounting agency for two whole years from July 1, 2000 - June 30, 2002. When lake residents and business complained about the weed infested and neglected lake, the state government said that accountants do not take care of lakes. In closing, my story serves as an example of how Boston does not care about the rest of Massachusetts, while they take our tax dollars for pork barrel boondoggles like Boston's "Big Dig".
- Jonathan Melle
Ben Downing for Massachusetts (ngpvan.com)
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Hello Patrick Fennell,
Let us recount Beacon Hill's public record from January 1, 2021 - today, March 11, 2021. The Massachusetts State Legislature collected up to 3 legislative pay raises to start off the new year. Governor Charlie Baker oversaw the botch Covid-19 vaccination program. Charlie Baker replaced his political hack appointment at the Holyoke Soldiers Home - where around 80 Veterans died of Covid-19 - with a new hospital administrator with no experience running hospitals. Most of last year (2020)'s stimulus money is left unspent by Beacon Hill. The new stimulus bill will be signed by President Joe Biden today. Beacon Hill will receive even more federal stimulus funds. Where will all of this stimulus money be spent by Beacon Hill? The state's unemployment account lost around a net $430 million. In less than one-half-hour at 2 p.m. today, the Massachusetts state House of Representatives will vote to give big business hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks, which does NOT benefit most of the state, especially rural regions like Berkshire County.
Meanwhile, over one million workers in Massachusetts have lost their jobs and health insurance.
I remember when Governor Willard Mitt Romney - who has his tax shelter accounts in the Cayman Islands - was the Governor of Massachusetts, and the state received a huge settlement from the tobacco firms. Beacon Hill made Holy Sermon on the Mount-like speeches about how the settlement funds would go to hospitals, cancer smoking victims, and educating the youth about the dangers of tobacco. Then, after Beacon Hill received the settlement funds, I read news articles that hardly any of the money went to hospitals, cancer smoking victims, and educating the youth about the dangers of tobacco. Instead, Beacon Hill put the money in the General Fund and gave themselves big legislative pay raises and other generous public perks.
Then there is Boston's "Big Dig", which had multibillion dollar cost overruns, leaks millions of gallons of dirty water everyday, and has claimed the lives of innocent people. Beacon Hill did not mind cutting local aid and public education dollars, but God forbid Boston's "Big Dig" did not receive tens of billions of dollars in state government funding.
In closing, Beacon Hill only does disservices to the people who live in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts! Vote out all of the corrupt career political hack politicians on Beacon Hill! They are all a disgrace!
Best wishes,
Jonathan Melle
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"Bidenomics beats Reaganomics and I should know – I saw Clintonomics fail"
By Robert Reich, Op-Ed, March 14, 2021
A quarter-century ago, I and other members of Bill Clinton’s cabinet urged him to reject the Republican proposal to end welfare. It was too punitive, we said, subjecting poor Americans to deep and abiding poverty. But Clinton’s political advisers warned that unless he went along, he would jeopardize his reelection.
That was the end of welfare as we knew it. As Clinton boasted in his State of the Union address to Congress that year: “The era of big government is over.”
Until Thursday, that is. Joe Biden signed into law the biggest expansion of government assistance since the 1960s – a guaranteed income for most families with children, raising the maximum benefit by up to 80% per child.
As Biden put it in his address to the nation, as if answering Clinton: “The government isn’t some foreign force in a distant capital. No, it’s us, all of us, we the people.”
As a senator, Biden supported Clinton’s 1996 welfare restrictions, as did most Americans. What happened between then and now? Three big things.
First, Covid. The pandemic has been a national wake-up call on the fragility of middle-class incomes. The deep Covid recession has revealed the harsh consequences of most Americans living paycheck to paycheck.
For years, Republicans used welfare to drive a wedge between the white working middle class and the poor. Ronald Reagan portrayed black, inner-city mothers as freeloaders and con artists, repeatedly referring to “a woman in Chicago” as the “welfare queen”.
Trump replaced economic Reaganism with narcissistic grievances, claims of voter fraud and cultural paranoia
Starting in the 1970s, women had streamed into paid work in order to prop up family incomes decimated by the decline in male factory jobs. These families were particularly susceptible to the Republican message. Why should “they” get help for not working when “we” get no help, and we work?
By the time Clinton campaigned for president, “ending welfare as we knew it” had become a talisman of so-called New Democrats, even though there was little or no evidence that welfare benefits discouraged the unemployed from taking jobs. (In Britain, enlarged child benefits actually increased employment among single mothers.)
Yet when Covid hit, a new reality became painfully clear: public assistance was no longer just for “them”. It was needed by all of “us”.
The second big thing was Donald Trump. He exploited racism, to be sure, but also replaced economic Reaganism with narcissistic grievances, claims of voter fraud and cultural paranoia stretching from Dr Seuss to Mr Potato Head.
Trump obliterated concerns about government give-aways. The Cares Act, which he signed into law at the end of March 2020, gave most Americans checks of $1,200 (to which he calculatedly attached his name). When this proved enormously popular, he demanded the next round of stimulus checks be $2,000.
But Trump’s biggest give-away was the GOP’s $1.9tn 2018 tax cut, under which benefits went overwhelmingly to the top 20%. Despite promises of higher wages for everyone else, nothing trickled down. Meanwhile, during the pandemic, America’s 660 billionaires – major beneficiaries of the tax cut – became $1.3tn wealthier, enough to give every American a $3,900 check and still be as rich as they were before the pandemic.
The third big thing is the breadth of Biden’s plan. Under it, more than 93% of the nation’s children – 69 million – receive benefits. Incomes of Americans in the lowest quintile will increase by 20%; those in the second-lowest, 9%; those in the middle, 6%.
Rather than pit the working middle class against the poor, this unites them. Some 76% of Americans supported the bill, including 63% of low-income Republicans (a quarter of all Republican voters). Younger conservatives are particularly supportive, presumably because people under 50 have felt the brunt of the four-decade slowdown in real wage growth.
Given all this, it’s amazing that zero Republican members of Congress voted for it, while 278 voted for Trump’s tax cuts for corporations and the rich.
The political lesson is that today’s Democrats – who enjoy popular vote majorities in presidential elections (having won seven of the past eight) – can gain political majorities by raising the wages of both middle class and poor voters, while fighting Republican efforts to suppress the votes of likely Democrats.
The economic lesson is that Reaganomics is officially dead. For years, conservative economists argued that tax cuts for the rich create job-creating investments, while assistance to the poor creates dependency. Rubbish.
Bidenomics is exactly the reverse: Give cash to the bottom two-thirds and their purchasing power will drive growth for everyone. This is far more plausible. We’ll learn how much in coming months.
Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a columnist for Guardian US
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March 20, 2021
Ben Downing will be on TV Sunday morning. He wants to raise state government taxes on high income earners. He is critical of Massachusetts State Police Troopers who declined opportunities to receive the Covid-19 vaccination.
https://www.wcvb.com/article/massachusetts-democratic-candidate-for-governor-ben-downing-on-the-record/35888852
Masachusetts gubernatorial hopeful Ben Downing critical of state troopers passing on COVID-19 vaccines (wcvb.com)
As for the Lovely Linda Tyer and Tricia Farley Bouvier, I believe they both care about Pittsfield, but that they are out of touch with a majority of the people who live there. The Lovely Linda lives very close to the Hancock border, while Tricia Farley Bouvier lives close to the Lenox border. I believe that the Lovely Linda and Tricia Farley Bouvier are smart not to live in inner city Pittsfield because they value their personal safety and peace of mind. They are part of the Jimmy "Rolodex" Ruberto faction of Pittsfield politics. I was disappointed in them because they took no accountability for the dozens of deaths from coronavirus at Pittsfield's nursing homes. I see them as failed career politicians.
- Jonathan Melle
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May 14, 2021
Hello Erin at Act on Mass, & blogger Dan Valenti, respectively,
First to Erin at Act on Mass, I wish to respond to your question about why I support your new political advocacy group. I believe in democracy and a state government that equitably invests in all of the people who live in Massachusetts. For many decades now, Beacon Hill lawmakers have done nothing but disservices to the people they supposedly represent. My dad, Bob Melle, was a politician over 2 decades ago, and his political dealings with Beacon Hill were the ugly stuff of retaliation, done deals, and Boston's "Big Dig" boondoggle receiving tens of billions of wasteful and inefficient tax dollars while Beacon Hill lawmakers told him that Berkshire County government was inefficient and had to be abolished and taken over the Boston's state government bureaucrats. My dad, who was the last chair of the Berkshire County Commission until June 30th, 2000, once told Beacon Hill lawmakers at a Boston Statehouse legislative hearing that he could run Berkshire County government for 5,000 years based on Boston's "Big Dig" recurring multi-billion-dollar cost overruns. I felt that Beacon Hill was the pot calling Berkshire County government or the kettle black because both forms of government were inefficient!
Beacon Hill lawmakers should not be so top-down and secretive that the people who pay their excessive public salaries and perks are shut out of Massachusetts State Government. The Boston Globe just last month reported that Beacon Hill lawmakers give big businesses in Massachusetts $17.8 billion per year in state tax breaks. The Massachusetts state lottery is one of the most successful state lottery operations in the nation. The reality of the lottery is that is really an inequitable system of voluntary regressive taxation that allows big businesses to pay billions of dollars less in state taxes, while throwing financial crumbs back to the cities and towns, and public education. The ratio of greedy Beacon Hill lobbyists to Beacon Hill lawmakers is huge. My point is that Beacon Hill is not only undemocratic, but also, Beacon Hill is very inequitable because the Boston-based state lawmakers are NOT investing in ALL of the people and taxpayers who live in Massachusetts.
Second, to blogger Dan Valenti, addiction is a brain disease. When people compulsively gamble, it is not so much about winning money, but it is about the dopamine rush or high the compulsive gambler receives when he or she wins. Compulsive gamblers' high is compared to a crack cocaine addict's high. Lottery tickets and casinos are shiny and modeled after proverbial opiate dens. When a compulsive gambling addict sees and senses lottery tickets and casino joints, they (lottery/casino) are playing on his or her chemicals lighting up in their brain with feel good chemicals when the compulsive gambler wins money. The unholy trinity of mental illness addiction is an addict seeking out sex workers (including porn), drugs and alcohol, and gambling joints. All three addictive activities give an addict's brain a high, but also a brain disease. When someone you love is addicted to any of the unholy trinity vices, then you should help them in evidenced based mental health recovery so they don't destroy their life with the brain disease of addiction. Most of the time, a recovering addict will tell you that he or she was self-medicating instead of receiving psychiatric mental health care. Recovery from addiction and other mental illnesses is a lifelong journey, and it is not always easy. In my life, I try to be a mental health peer who supports people like myself in evidenced based mental health recovery. Lastly, I will never judge a person in recovery and I will never use mental health as a weapon against anyone, including myself.
Best wishes,
Jonathan Melle
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Jonathan,
Whether you’re a climate activist fighting for the Legislature to take bolder action on climate change, a union worker tired of Massachusetts refusing to provide basic protections for workers, or just a resident who wants health care to be a human right, we all have different reasons for why transparency matters to us.
Your public narrative - the personal story of why you chose to be a part of this fight - is an invaluable tactic of persuasion. Not only is it a powerful tool to encourage our legislators to take a stand, it’s also a great tool for building community, and motivating fellow activists to keep fighting.
That’s why Sunrise Boston will be holding a Public Narrative Workshop next Thursday, May 20th at 7:00PM, to help you develop your story and learn how you can use it to build support for transparency!
If you can’t make it, we still want to hear your story! We’re looking for enthusiastic campaign members to make short, informal videos about why State House reform matters to them.
This campaign is all about uplifting voices and shifting the culture, inside the State House and out, to center the needs and values of everyday people. If dozens of people make and post videos about transparency and why they’re in this fight, we can shift the narrative and spread the word about the campaign statewide.
Want to publish a video? Click here to find out how to get started and some guidelines for the video campaign:
CREATE A VIDEO >>
Thanks for everything you do,
Erin
Act on Mass
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May 31, 2021
I honor all of the American Soldiers who served and gave their lives in defense of our beloved country. I am very upset with the Holyoke Soldiers Home debacle where 76 Veterans died of Covid-19 over the past year. Governor Charlie Baker should take responsibility for what happened there. Politicians vote to send U.S. Soldiers to fight in wars, but then when Veterans return home, they go homeless, live in poverty, are unemployed or under-employed, have to fight state and federal VA bureaucracies for their benefits and healthcare, and face episodes of domestic conflict with their respective families. When I go to the VA hospital, Veterans never judge each others' military service, but rather, we support each other as brothers and sisters. One thing all Veterans say in unity is that Veterans never want to see or hear of a homeless Veteran. In closing, no one should have to experience homelessness, poverty, and so on, especially Veterans and their families.
- Jonathan Melle
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June 2, 2021
Hello Erin at Act on Mass, and Patrick Fennell, respectively,
Beacon Hill is secretive and full of corrupt career political hacks in a one political party dominated Massachusetts State Legislature. The Berkshire delegation to Beacon Hill does NOT represent the people who live in their respective Western Massachusetts' legislative districts. Even nearly 2-decade-long career politician Lenox State Representative Smitty Pignatelli published an op-ed in the Berkshire Eagle explaining that Berkshire County has lost huge numbers of population and living wage jobs over the decades, while state, local and public school districts costs have all increased (without Smitty looking at himself in the proverbial mirror). We live in an age of great economic inequality, and the mostly rural Western Massachusetts region is falling behind the Boston area. Also, let us not forget about PAC Man Richie Neal, who has been in U.S. Congress for over 3 decades now, who only represents K Street corporate lobbyist firms who donate millions of special interest dollars into his campaign coffers each and every year. PAC Man Richie Neal is one of the top corporate Democrats in the Swamp who drowns out the voices of the grassroots Democrats on Capitol Hill.
The Berkshire delegation - Chrome Dome: Adam Hinds, Trippy Country Buffet: Tricia Farley Bouvier, Paul Marx: Paul Mark, Smitty Pignatelli, and the Mayor: John Barrett III - are all useless backbenchers in Boston. The Eastern Massachusetts Country Club career politicians in Boston only show up on payday. I was watching the Boston news a while back, and a Beacon Hill State Representative lady said that there are the Starbucks versus the Dunkin coffee drinking state lawmakers. The Starbucks state lawmakers live in the Boston area elite and wealthy suburbs where the median income is between $200,000 to $300,000 per year. The Dunkin state lawmakers live in the rest of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts where median incomes are below $100,000 per year.
It is all a game to the Boston area dominated career politicians instead of a state government democracy for most to all of the people who live in all of Massachusetts. Beacon Hill lawmakers vote themselves 40 percent pay raises, receive up to 3 legislative pay raises every 2 years, pad their taxpayer-funded retirement accounts with committee assignments, vote in near unanimous blocs to please the very powerful House Speaker or Senate President, and shut out the public from most of their state legislative business negotiations.
Lastly, while Beacon Hill lawmakers took months off at a time in 2020, 76 Veterans in the Holyoke Soldiers Home tragically died from Covid-19. Governor Charlie Baker has taken zero responsibility for the WORST debacle in the over 400 year history of Massachusetts government. Over one million Massachusetts workers lost their jobs and health insurance over the past year, while Beacon Hill lawmakers went missing in action. In closing, Beacon Hill only does disservices to the people they only screw over instead of supposedly represent in Massachusetts state government.
Best wishes,
Jonathan Melle
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June 2, 2021
Jonathan,
With just a month to go until the House Rules vote in July, we’re ramping up our campaign to put pressure on the Legislature to vote for transparency.
So, how will we win? By changing the culture of our state government inside and out to re-center the voices that matter: yours. The State House is used to shutting constituents out of the process, but our campaign is all about elbowing our way back in by bringing as many Massachusetts residents as possible into the political process.
One of the most powerful tools you have to organize for transparency and convince your representative to sign on to the People’s House Campaign amendments is your own personal story! We all have different reasons for being a part of this campaign, and these reasons are powerful. The truth is people aren’t always convinced by facts and logic. Instead, we’re persuaded and motivated by stories. And without stories, we forget why we’re fighting for change in the first place.
That’s why we’re cohosting another Public Narrative Workshop with Sunrise Boston on Wednesday, June 9th at 7pm! Come to the workshop to learn more about how to develop your own story, and how to use it as an essential organizing tool:
RSVP TODAY >>
Whether you got into this fight because of the growing threat of climate change, because you’re invested in protecting our immigrant communities, or to fight for better labor protections for workers, we all have different reasons for why transparency matters to us.
Your public narrative - the personal story of why you chose to be a part of this campaign - is an important persuasion tactic not just to encourage reps to take a stand, but also for building community and bringing new people into the fight.
RSVP for the Public Narrative Workshop June 9th, 7:00 develop your story and learn how you can use it to build support for transparency!
RSVP TODAY >>
Thanks for everything you do,
Erin
Act on Mass
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June 2, 2021
Jonathon;
The 2022 state budget is huge! Remember the state was pretty much shutdown since officially March 2020, but we know part-timers at Cumberland Farms put in more work hours in a week than any elected politician in Boston does in a year.
When work isn't being done the budget shoud be smaller, not bigger, plus Biden Bucks are floating around.
Let's be honest our Berkshire delegation is a disgrace.
Patrick Fennell
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June 3, 2021
Hello Pat,
I agree with you about voting out every current member of the Massachusetts State Legislature. I also believe there should be no such thing as a career politician. It would be great if there was a law that said elected officials can only serve for 8 years with no taxpayer-funded pension and other perks. It would also be great if greedy Boston Statehouse lobbyists like Dan Bosley, Peter Larkin and Stan Rosenberg had to choose between their taxpayer-funded pensions and other public perks or making their respective 6-figure lobbyist salaries by bribing Beacon Hill Salons.
I have a Master of Public Administration, and I have read many public policy papers over the years. It all boils down to the government investing in ALL of the people and taxpayers that the elected politicians are supposed to be representing in local, state and federal government. In return for public dollars going to the proverbial Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski family instead of only to the vested and special interests, the proverbial Kapanski family in turn invests their living wage family income into their community and state's small businesses who in turn hire the Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski's children. The growing Kapanski family lives a middle class life where they pay state and local taxes and invest in their property. The cycle of public investment then produces economic growth in the Kapanski family's community and state.
Beacon Hill is doing the opposite of investing in ALL of the people who live in Massachusetts. Like I wrote yesterday, the Starbucks coffee drinking state lawmakers go home to their wealthy Boston area suburban communities where the average home is worth around $1 million and the median income is between $200,000 to $300,000 per year. The Dunkin coffee drinking state lawmakers - or most of them - go home to their working and underclass communities where Main Street is at the bottom of the K-shaped economic recession. Massachusetts has always been very classist, but now it has become the poster child for economic inequality.
We the People are ALL supposed to be equal in the eyes of our government. ALL of the people and taxpayers of Massachusetts should be invested in by Beacon Hill's Salons. We should all have a voice in our state government. Beacon Hill lawmakers should NOT be so secretive and shut out the people from their legislative business negotiations. I hope Beacon Hill will change for the better in the future, but I won't be holding my breath!
Best wishes,
Jonathan
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February 18, 2023
I told people that I liked Maura Healey's 2022 campaign for Governor of Massachusetts after I read a news article that she would go from campaigning to shooting hoops with common people in places like my native hometown of Pittsfield, Massachusetts. I liked Maura Healey's campaign commercials, too, whereby she played basketball with the common people. I hope that the Boston Celtics win the 2022 - 2023 NBA championship in Governor Maura Healey's first year as the Governor of Massachusetts. The professional basketball players could even ask her for some pointers.
Jonathan A. Melle
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"Former aide to Sen. Ben Downing named commissioner of state Department of Energy Resources"
By The Berkshire Eagle, March 4, 2023
BOSTON — Elizabeth Mahony, who worked with former state Sen. Benjamin Downing D-Pittsfield, when he served in the state Legislature, was recently named commissioner of the state Department of Energy Resources.
The department develops and implements policies and programs aimed at ensuring the adequacy, security, diversity and cost-effectiveness of the commonwealth's energy supply to create a clean, affordable and resilient energy future for all residents, businesses, communities and institutions.
Mahony started her new position February 27, [2023].
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