An Obama TV Ad In Berlin?

BarackBook

Check out Barack Obama's friends on BarackBook!

UPDATE

New York Times… Here’s an entry you would not expect to see on Barack Obama’s official profile on the social networking site Facebook: “Barack Obama is now friends with Antonin ‘Tony’ Rezko.” But that’s the first item on Mr. Obama’s “FriendFeed” on BarackBook.com, a Facebook parody site created by the Republican National Committee that it says will go live on Tuesday. According to the R.N.C, the site is intended to showcase some of Mr. Obama’s “notable associations”… Users of Facebook – the real one – may be able to install an application on their personal page with links to BarackBook. (Falcone, New York Times, 07/28/08)

ABC News… The Republican National Committee has launched a fake Facebook page attacking Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, highlighting some of the more controversial “friends” in his “network”… Under Obama’s picture today, parodying the “what are you doing” conceit of the real Facebook, it reads: “Barack is hoping to settle on an Iraq policy before November.” (Tapper, ABC News, 07/29/08)

MSNBC… The Republicans are taking aim at Barack Obama with a new parody of the website Facebook. Republican National Committee created BarackBook.com. The RNC says the site is intended to showcase what it calls some of Obama's quote unquote notable associations. One name listed as Obama’s friend is Tony Rezko, the Chicago real estate developer recently convicted of corruption. Rezko was an early Obama donor. (Allen, MSNBC, 10:51 AM, 07/29/08)

FOX News… Some McCain supporters are having a little fun with Barack Obama. Republican National Committee has set up a Facebook parody site. They call it Barackbook.com. The site goes live today. The RNC says it’s designed to highlight some of, what they call, Obama’s more questionable connections, like Weather Underground founder William Ayers. They also talk about Tony Rezko. The RNC says it plans to keep updating that site until the election. (Skinner, FOX News, 12:10 PM, 07/29/08)

USA Today… Facebook fans will recognize the look immediately – the Republican National Committee has created a "BarackBook" website to highlight "some of Barack Obama's notable associations throughout stages of his career." Those "notable associations" include Chicago real estate developer and Democratic fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko, who was convicted on fraud and money laundering charges last month. (Memmott, USA Today, 07/29/08)

Chicago Tribune… You can just picture the meeting in your mind's eye. Staffers at the Republican National Committee must've been sitting around asking themselves: How can we come up with a novel and sort of hip way to remind voters of some of Sen. Barack Obama's more questionable relationships (think Antoin "Tony" Rezko?) How about doing a BarackBook, a FaceBook knockoff filled with the troublesome associations of Obama's we want to highlight?... A clever approach at negative campaigning. (James, Chicago Tribune, 07/29/08)

Politico… The RNC launches a clever Facebook parody, BarackBook, aimed at tarring him through association with various controversial Chicagoans: "William Ayers has updated his profile." BarackBook is also a Facebook application, however, and clearly entering some rather unfriendly waters over there. (Smith, Politico, 07/29/08)

Boston Globe… The Republican National Committee, meanwhile, pokes fun at Barack Obama with a website, a parody of a Facebook site, that highlights Obama's links with not-so-pristine characters such as Tony Rezko, a past fund-raiser who was convicted last month by a federal jury on corruption charges, and William Ayers, a 1960s radical. (Rhee, Boston Globe, 07/29/08)

The Hill… The Republican National Committee has unveiled a mock Facebook page for Barack Obama which highlights his reported ties to former Weather Underground leader William Ayers and convicted real estate developer Tony Rezko. The site, called “BarackBook,” loosely pays homage to the social networking site Facebook's layout. The Illinois senator's status is “Barack is hoping to settle on an Iraq policy before November.” (Michalakes, The Hill, 07/29/08)

PowerLine… The RNC has now parodied Obama's use of social networking quite cleverly with a page called BarackBook. The site is a useful guide to Obama's friends, with videos and a news feed. What is Barack doing right now? (Facebook users will get the reference.) "Barack is hoping to settle on an Iraq policy before November." BarackBook is also an application that you can add to your own Facebook page. Well done, RNC! (PowerLine, 07/29/08)

Road Trip!

The MassGOP interns have been working tirelessly for legislative campaigns this summer and they have decided to take a road trip this Saturday, August 2nd to visit the New England headquarters for Senator John McCain.

They are renting a bus and they have invited you to join them! Seating is limited, so sign up quickly by emailing the MassGOP interns at intern@massgop.com to reserve your seat on the bus!

You MUST RSVP to get your name on the list. There is a bus departing from Braintree at 8:30AM, and Boston at 9:00AM.

Rep. Kevin Murphy (D-Lowell) Targeted by GOP

Murphy targeted in GOP complaint
By Jennifer Myers, jmyers@lowellsun.com
Article Last Updated: 07/26/2008 06:36:10 AM EDT

BOSTON -- The Massachusetts Republican Party has filed a complaint with the state Ethics Commission against Lowell Democratic Rep. Kevin Murphy regarding his legal representation of the city's four assistant school superintendents, one of which is his wife, in contract negotiations last month.

The negotiations, approved in a 4-3 School Committee vote, resulted in an average pay increase of 6.3 percent for the four administrators, in addition to a number of extra benefits and perks.

Kevin Murphy's wife, Assistant Superintendent of Student Support Services Ann Murphy, had her contract renegotiated two years early and received a $10,000 raise, the largest of the four.

In a letter to the Ethics Commission, MassGOP Executive Director Rob Willington asks the agency to investigate whether Kevin Murphy violated the law by:

* Not disclosing his direct financial interest with his wife's employment to the Ethics Commission.

* Representing a private group of individuals and his wife before a board that relies on him to bring millions of dollars in local education aid back to the city annually.

* Negotiating a larger raise for his wife than the other individuals, a situation the GOP opines could be a violation of a law that prohibits him from using "his official position to secure for himself or others unwarranted privileges or exemptions which are of substantial value and which are not properly available to similarly situated individuals."

"It'simportant that the people of Massachusetts have faith in their elected officials to do the right thing for their constituents," Willington said in a statement. "The ethics law exists for a reason, and the Massachusetts Republican Party will continue to fight to make sure everyone works under a fair and open process and that no special advantage is given to the friends and family of Beacon Hill insiders."

Click Here To Read More

Letter In Salem News On Sales Tax Holiday

Letter: Grant would sacrifice taxpayers to prop up state budget

To the editor:

Earlier this week Rep. Mary Grant, D-Beverly, told The Salem News she was against the sales tax holiday because "we need to think about stabilizing our state budget." While that's a nice sentiment, it's hard to take it seriously.

It's hard to take seriously because of her vote to approve a state budget for FY 2009 that the nonpartisan Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation estimates is at least $1 billion out of balance. This final budget ended up being larger than the versions proposed by the governor, Senate AND House of Representatives in an astounding case of 1 plus 1 plus 1 equaling a 5.3 percent increase in spending for the state.

Three weeks ago, Rep. Grant voted for a budget that could conceivably end up much further out of balance due to questions over federal health-care money and capital gains revenues. These questions are already driving speculation of a "fiscal meltdown" for the state, with the governor asking for unilateral authority to cut spending later this year, including local aid money for cities like Beverly.

This week Rep. Grant was one of just 15 representatives to vote no on the sales tax holiday because it will cost the state approximately $15 million in lost tax revenue. Her opposition would deny families already stretched to the limit by rising costs of living some much-appreciated relief during back-to-school time in order to pay for the bloated budget she voted to approve.

An approach more consistent with her concerns over the budget might have been for Rep. Grant to find $15 million in wasteful spending in the budget and eliminate it to offset the tax holiday.

Just last month the voters of Beverly made it clear by a 2-to-1 margin that they would not support a city budget that was out of balance. You can imagine that if they were the ones casting the vote on this state budget, it is not something they would have supported. As Beverly's voice on Beacon Hill, why would Rep. Grant give it her support?

As a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Grant has a real opportunity to actually make a difference in her stated desire to stabilize the state budget by working to get the state's unsustainable spending under control. Actions really do speak louder than words.

BRETT SCHETZSLE

Beverly

New Article By Matt Kinnaman

http://origin.thetranscript.com/columnists/ci_9982270

Thursday, July 24

Imperial attitude
By Matt Kinnaman

Attention, all ideologies. It's not about gay marriage after all. It's actually about the Legislature's roughshod ride over the basic values of representative democracy.

That's the inescapable conclusion following last week's actions in the Massachusetts Senate.

Let's set the stage. Legislatively, Massachusetts is the nation's supreme Democratic Party stronghold. In the Massachusetts Senate, 35 of 40 seats are held by Democrats. In the House, 141 of 160 seats are held by Democrats. This stranglehold on political control by the Massachusetts Democratic Party has created an environment in which legislators evidently feel free to do whatever they want. Within their 88 percent majority, there are no measures to hold them accountable to the people who elected them.

Consider this: In its July 15 decision to repeal the "1913 Law," a Massachusetts marriage statute prohibiting out-of-state persons from marriages in the commonwealth which would be illegal in their home states, the Senate took a voice vote, allowing its members to avoid individually recorded votes on a question at the very center of our most momentous human understandings.

News reports indicated that not even one state senator raised any substantive debate prior to the voice vote.

No recorded votes? No debate? How in the world did they justify that? Well, they didn't. They just went ahead and did it. But even people who disagree with one another about the definition of marriage can still agree about this: State marriage statutes involve monumental questions pertaining to the essence of our shared agreements about critical social arrangements, the interactions of our laws and the foundations of our federal system of government. To which our Senate shrugged its collective shoulders and figuratively said, "So what's the big deal?"

Maybe they thought nobody would catch on. After all, the state senators used a framework of false pretenses to accommodate their maneuver, claiming they were eliminating vestiges of racism underlying the 1913 Law. Oops. Not really. Massachusetts made interracial marriage completely legal in the commonwealth in 1843, seven decades before 1913. Reflecting on the origins of the 1913 Law, Democrat Attorney General Thomas Reilly's office stated in 2004 that "...there is not the slightest evidence that this purpose (prohibitions of interracial marriage) actually motivated the Massachusetts Legislature" in its original enactment of the 1913 Law.

Reilly was not alone. After discovering a right to same-sex marriage in 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court later upheld the 1913 Law as constitutional in the related case of Cote-Whitacre in 2006, when Justice Francis Spina wrote for the majority: "It is not the province of (the court) to dictate to other states how to construe their own specific statutes and public policy when confronted with the issue whether to recognize a same-sex marriage performed in Massachusetts."

Spina held that Massachusetts "has a significant interest in not meddling in matters in which another state, the one where a couple actually resides, has a paramount interest."

In other words, Massachusetts' 1913 Law is legally and logically cohesive and necessary within our federal constitutional system, designed to protect the integrity of each respective state's laws. Given this rational point, and in light of the many critical and pressing concerns on larger issues of education, taxation and health care affecting life in Massachusetts, the Senate's urgent undercover repeal of the 1913 Law without debate and without a roll call of votes was out of line by any measurement of legal reasoning, political accountability or wise legislative prioritization.

When our elected officials attempt to modify the foundations of our human societal structures, along with the federal constitutional relationship among the states, and in doing so are unwilling to engage in thorough debate or a public record of their individual votes, they have reached an unprecedented pinnacle of political arrogance, combined with an abdication of the two highest responsibilities of their office: transparent accountability to the voters and honest, deliberate consideration of critical legal precedent.

But this imperial attitude is a pattern in Massachusetts politics under the current Democratic Party majority. They have ignored the people's approval of an income tax rollback since 2000. Since 2002, they have blockaded the constitutionally approved and completed initiative-petition process guaranteeing voters a voice in the marriage debate. And now House Speaker Sal DiMasi promises to diss the voters again if they approve Question 1, a measure to eliminate the state income tax.

All of which indicates that there's one more elimination required at the ballot box; the elimination of the one-party super majority ensconced on Beacon Hill.

Matt Kinnaman's Getting it Right column appears every Thursday in the Transcript.

please join our road trip

The MassGOP interns and I have been working hard in our Boston office, primarily for legislative candidates. We decided to organize a summer road trip on August 2nd, to New Hampshire, to campaign for John McCain.

This is not limited to MassGOP interns. You are invited too!

If you would like to attend, you should contact us at intern@massgop.com and get on the bus!

The New England campaign office is in Manchester, NH, and we are excited to see the headquarters and give McCain some Massachusetts muscle. Hope to see you on August 2nd!

-Chris Bowler

The Media Love Affair

hat tip: The Next Right

Jeff Beatty Luau Fundraiser

Double Dipping Delahunt

The Boston Herald reports how Congressman Delahunt receives money from both the state and federal government.

2 New State Committee Members!

Congratulations to David Rose of Fall River (First Bristol and Plymouth District), and Elizabeth Mahoney of Belmont (Second Suffolk and Middlesex District), who were selected by caucus to become members of the Massachusetts Republican State Committee! The election for both will be brought up for ratification at our next full State Committee meeting on Tuesday, September 9th.

Their contact information is:
Elizabeth Mahoney - Elizabeth.mahoney@gmail.com
David Rose - david.rose@FallRiverGop.org


Please join us in welcoming and congratulating David Rose and Elizabeth Mahoney!

NECN

Rob Willington was on New England Cable News talking about Jim Marzilli and the new allegations. In addition, Willington continued the pressure on Marzilli to resign.

new MassGOP.com on the horizon

Do you have any suggestions on the new MassGOP.com? We are about to launch, so please let us know if you have any ideas - what would you like to see? Leave your suggestions in the comments.

Cheers,

Intern of the Week

Introducing...

Lauren Noble

Lauren’s combination of determination and vast knowledge about politics make her a tremendous addition to the team here at the Mass GOP. She arrives every morning and dives right into her work, making election database management look effortless! No job is too small for Lauren, she is always ready and willing to help out any other interns with Excel projects or convention hotel bookings. You might be surprised to know that when Lauren isn’t campaigning for McCain she is a member of her school’s equestrian team! Read on to find out more…

School: Yale University

Hometown: Concord, Ma

Biggest Accomplishment: Being so fortunate as to attend the same institution as the late and great William S. Buckley Jr.

When I grow up I wanna be… a Veterinarian or the first female Jewish President of the United States of America.

Favorite Republican: Theodore Roosevelt

Current Office Project: Election Database Manager

If you would like to contact Lauren please send her an e-mail her way at Intern@Massgop.com

Jay Barrows Annual BBQ!

State Rep. Jay Barrows Annual BBQ in the Barn

A crowd of 80 supporters and families joined State Rep Jay Barrows at his home in Mansfield for his annual summer BBQ. Guests included House Minority Leader Brad Jones and his family, and State Rep. George Peterson. Burgers and dogs were on the plates, but Jay's re-election in November was on everyone's mind and drew cheers from the crowd. For more information on the campaign or for more photos, visit www.votebarrows.com.

New Matt Kinnaman Article

Getting it Right
July 10, 2008
http://www.thetranscript.com/ci_9838332
Fearless Leadership and Big Ideas: A Lesson for Massachusetts
By Matt Kinnaman

Friday, February 11, 1983 was an historic day in Washington D.C. A major winter storm enveloped the city. At the White House, most workers left for home before noon. Others who didn’t ended up snowed-in as DC’s fifth biggest accumulation ever buried the district’s streets and landmarks.

President Reagan recorded the storm in his journal, along with a much more consequential occurrence that took place while many members of Reagan’s team were hurrying home early to escape the blizzard. It was a lunch meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, lasting almost two hours, and Reagan wrote that “out of it came a super idea.”

To describe this breakthrough, the president posed a question in his diary: “What if we tell the world we want to protect our people, not avenge them; that we’re going to embark on a program of research to come up with a defensive weapon that could make nuclear weapons obsolete?”

With one of the greatest creative policy strokes ever painted, President Reagan introduced the Strategic Defense Initiative to the US and the world in a March 23rd speech, ingeniously positioning an unprecedented US nuclear buildup with an unmatched willingness to protect the rest of the world from its future use.

Reagan’s “super idea” infuriated and emboldened his critics on the Left, who immediately derided the initiative as “Star Wars.” They perceived it as a dunderheaded stumble by a deficient and unsophisticated grade B actor masquerading as president. But they were mistaken.

What they failed in their emboldened protests to notice was that Reagan’s daring move decisively un-emboldened America’s number one adversary, the Soviet Union. When Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev insisted in their 1986 Reykjavik Summit that Reagan abandon SDI in exchange for Soviet arms reductions, Reagan refused, and instead offered to share SDI technology with the Soviet Union. Convinced of the US president’s commitment to develop an anti-ballistic weapons shield and America’s demonstrated economic ability to amass a nuclear capability the Soviets could not afford to match, Gorbachev folded.

On December 25, 1991, 3240 days after February 11, 1983’s snowstorm and brainstorm, not only had that day’s frozen accumulation melted; so had the Cold War. In a Christmas gift to the entire world, a gift made possible by Reagan’s prescience and persistence in pursuit of a super idea, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as president of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and the USSR was officially dissolved the following day.

When Gorbachev announced his resignation, he expressed bewildered regret at the Soviet Union’s failure: “There is plenty of everything: land, oil and gas, other natural riches, and God gave us lots of intelligence and talent, yet we lived much worse than developed countries and keep falling behind them more and more.”

Meanwhile, the US was moving further and further ahead because of Reagan’s additional super ideas; across-the-board tax reduction and reduced regulation on economic enterprise. Though these initiatives were also derided by Democrats (grandma will be left out in the cold, school children will starve in the closed cafeterias, etc…), Reagan’s vision for lower taxes and eased regulation unleashed an historic 1980’s blizzard of economic growth (adjusted for inflation, US GDP grew by one-third), job expansion (nearly 20 million new jobs), increased government revenues (nearly doubling from $517 billion to more than $1 trillion), and reinvigorated US leadership on the world stage.

Diarist, president, and big thinker, Reagan was not blown about by storms of popular incumbent opinion. This is instructive for Massachusetts at this moment, in a year when a politically transformative question will appear on the ballot; whether to eliminate the state’s income tax on individual workers. What will Massachusetts do?

Like SDI, eliminating the income tax is a big idea that requires political vision, and promises a huge upside. State Senate president Therese Murray warns that this “would mean laying off teachers, police and firefighters, closing schools and shutting down road projects." What it would really mean is an average annual raise of $3600 per worker, a revved up growth engine, a rebuilt nationwide reputation for Massachusetts as an emerging leader of citizen-led economic empowerment, and the simultaneous imposition of serious and transparent fiscal discipline on the legislature.

Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce president Paul Guzzi says "It's irresponsible and it goes too far, and reasonable people understand that." But the “reasonable” politicos and chatterers who scurry away from greatness in favor of the status quo sureties of convention said similar things when President Reagan proposed his revolutionary ideas.

Thankfully, he didn’t listen.

Matt Kinnaman’s “Getting it Right” column appears every week in The Transcript.

Matt Kinnaman on Income Tax

Matt Kinnaman, Chair of the MassGOP Issues Committee, was on TV in Springfield talking about the new initiative to eliminate the income tax.

congressman capuano

For those of you that may not know, Congressman Capuano is cracking down on the usage of internet from fellow House members. Check out this post on TechRepublican.com

Boston Herald Op Ed

The Herald Op-Ed started with a press release we issued this week.

It was a simple statement of fact in the press release from the Massachusetts Republican Party, issued Wednesday saying, “Today, the taxpayers of Massachusetts paid Jim Marzilli $159.55.”

Just as the all-too-generous taxpayers would be shelling out today and tomorrow and the day after that for the “services” of a state senator who is incapable of serving his constituents, except through those on his office staff who remain on the job.

new McCain Widget

One of the newer features you will see on the coming MassGOP.com will be some fantastic widgets. On the right hand side you will see a new McCain widget and you will also see the same widget on one of the many blogs we created for the Republican Town Committees. This is just the beginning.