To the editor:

Herman Cain was forced out of the campaign by his immoral acts and lies about them, not by liberal ideologues as Joe Fitzgerald claims. Cain’s plummeting poll numbers came from conservatives who might have actually voted for him.

It’s true that other politicians, on both sides of the aisle, have dallied, gotten caught, and emerged with little damage. The difference is not their politics or their race, but rather their reaction to exposure. It’s obvious that Cain is lying through his teeth, and as usual, the coverup was worse than the crime.

As is befitting in an America which is increasingly post-racial, Cain was judged not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Kamens

I write in opposition to H.408, “legislation to establish civil or criminal penalties for motorists failing to yield to bicyclists,” which you sponsored.

Bicyclists are legally prohibited from riding in crosswalks. To use the crosswalk, a bicyclist is legally required to dismount from his bicycle and walk it, thus making him a pedestrian and therefore protected by the existing law. If he does not dismount, he is legally required to operate his bicycle as a vehicle, which means (among other things) staying out of the crosswalk.

Bicyclists riding in crosswalks are dangerous both to pedestrians and other vehicles on the road. It is both unnecessary and unreasonable to enshrine into law protections which would encourage bicyclists to violate other laws and operate their vehicles dangerously.

Drivers can already be cited for driving unsafely; there is no need for a new law protecting bicyclists in this particular context. This is especially true since the law would create a presumption that the driver of a car that strikes a bicycle in a crosswalk was at fault, when in fact it is just as likely, if not more so, that the bicyclist was at fault for darting into the crosswalk too fast for the driver to stop in time.

I speak from the point of view of someone who regularly walks, bikes, and drives in Boston; someone who strives to adhere to the law in all of those contexts; and someone who resents the many bicyclists who do not.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Kamens

When I arrived home (__ ___ Street, Brighton) at 6:15 this evening, I found a “Connolly for Boston” campaign sign secured to my porch railing with zip ties:

My wife tells me it was not there when she arrived home at 5:15. My three-year-old son tells me he saw “a man in a pickup truck” put up the sign.

Neither my wife nor I has spoken to anyone from your campaign or approved the placement of this campaign sign on our property.

Please explain yourself.

Furthermore, please remove this sign from our property immediately.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Kamens

CC: UniversalHub.com
CC: allstonbrighton2006@googlegroups.com
CC: blog.kamens.us
CC: Boston Globe
CC: Boston Herald
CC: Allston-Brighton TAB

[Simulblogged.]

UPDATE: I received a response from John Connolly shortly after sending the email above:

Jonathan,

I don’t know why the sign was put up. In putting up 500+ signs across the city, I am guessing it is possible we had the wrong address or confused it with a list from two years ago or maybe someone e-mailed us the address and we didn’t properly confirm it. Just last week we put up a sign at a home where the owner of 20+ years had told us to put up a sign anytime we want without asking during only to find out the owner had since moved. I had it removed right away. I don’t know why the sign is up at your home, but I will try to find out when I next talk to my campaign manager. The only thing I do know right now is that we made a mistake, and for that, I apologize.

I’m confused as to why you copied media on the e-mail, but I’ll publicly acknowledge I made a mistake if that is what you want me to do or you can just forward my e-mail to whomever you wish.

In any event, the sign will come down tomorrow. In fact, I’ll be in Brighton tomorrow morning so I will do it myself.

I apologize for the inconvenience, and I hope you are well.

Apologies,
John

For the record, I believe we did allow him to put up a sign on our lawn for one of his previous elections, so that would explain why he’d think he could get away with putting one up without permission this time around, but I frankly don’t buy his claim that his campaign “confused” its lists; it seems rather likely to me that any such “confusion” was intentional. I sent Connolly this response:

I copied the media because I think it is a newsworthy event when a candidate trespasses on a resident’s property to further his campaign. If it was an accident, then that reduces the severity of the offense but certainly does not fully mitigate it.

And I haven’t forgotten, frankly, what you did to Steve Murphy. Your hands are not entirely clean of campaign hijinks.

  Jonathan Kamens

The reference in the last paragraph above is to an incident in 2007 when Connolly sent out an anonymous campaign postcard attacking Steve Murphy. You can Google for more information. Here is how the Globe reported it.

I have been in conversation about this with a high-level employee at Brave New Foundation, and I am now able to report the following important information:

• Brave New Foundation does not sell, share or rent their email lists.
• There is a Brave New Foundation employee with access to their lists who has a relative who works for Nation of Change.
• Brave New Foundation believes that this Nation of Change employee made unauthorized use of his/her relative’s access to copy an as yet undetermined subset of Brave New Foundation’s email lists for Nation of Change’s use.
• Brave New Foundation does not believe its employee was complicit in this unauthorized access. In fact, s/he was unaware that it had occurred until I brought it to Brave New Foundation’s attention.
• Brave New Foundation considers this breach of their data to be extremely serious, and they are actively investigating it.
• Brave New Foundation is considering legal action against Nation of Change both to prevent any further use of the copied email addresses and to obtain financial compensation for the damage to Brave New Foundation’s reputation and the time and resources spend investigating this incident.

All of this information, as well as some additional off-the-record supporting information that I cannot report here, was provided to me directly by an employee of Brave New Foundation. I have no reason to believe that employee is lying, and what s/he told me is consistent with my suspicions and impressions about Nation of Change. However, in the spirit of full disclosure, I want to be clear that I have not seen any hard evidence supporting any of Brave New Foundation’s allegations against Nation of Change.

When you combine these new allegations against Nation of Change with all the other issues I raised in my first posting about them, it seems doubtful that this is an organization which deserves anyone’s support.

I asked a lot of questions about Nation of Change, and thus far they’ve failed to respond to any of them. Here’s what has happened instead.

In response to my complaint, a representative of Nation of Change informed me, “I was unable to find your address: [elided] in our system.” I sent back a reply in which I included the entire header of the spam from Nation of Change, showing clearly that they had sent email to that address. They did not respond.

Much more significantly, several days later I received a “Thank you for Signing Up!” email sent to the same tagged email address from a different progressive web site, CommonDreams.org. When I complained to them, they claimed that someone had entered the address into the subscription form on their web site.

This is certainly not coincidence. It looks very much to me like whoever is behind the unauthorized transfer of a list of email addresses from Brave New Foundation to Nation of Change is trying to cover their tracks by making it look like I’m lying about the privacy of the email address in question. Either that, or they’re just being vindictive and trying to make my life difficult because I exposed their actions.

Let me tell you about a little strategy I use to find out who’s buying and selling my email address… When I give my email address to an organization or Web site, I “tag” it to make it unique to that site while still ending up in my inbox. So when that site decides to sell or share my address, I know who did it.

When I put my address on a petition created by Brave New Films (now the Brave New Foundation) during the 2008 presidential campaign, I did not give Brave New Films permission to give it out to others. Guess what, folks, that’s spamming, and it’s evil, and I don’t support organizations that spam or help others spam. By giving out my address and others without permission, Brave New Foundation has permanently lost my support, and by using my and others’ illicitly obtained addresses, so have you.

But that’s not the end of it. Because I’d never heard of your organization before receiving your spam yesterday, and because it was sent to an address that should not have been shared, and because something looked a little, well, iffy about it, I decided to do a little research and try to learn more about you. And I can’t say I liked what I found.

It’s not because you’re advocating positions with which I disagree. I haven’t actually looked carefully at your positions, but from what little I glanced at, I didn’t see anything I found particularly shocking or offensive. No, what’s bothering me is that I get the distinct impression that you’re trying to lie and deceive people. And if you think I want to see progressives emulating the Koch Brothers, boy, you’ve got another think coming.

Let me give you some examples of what I’m talking about.

The email you sent me yesterday was the first one I’ve ever received from you, and yet there was no acknowledgment of that fact in the email. You made it look like it was just business as usual, as if you were someone I’d been corresponding with all along, just another political organization clamoring for attention in my inbox. That’s just wrong. If you’re going to start spamming people without their permission, then the least you can do is introduce yourselves and give them the opportunity to recognize that you’re someone new and they should make a conscious decision about whether they want to keep hearing from you. Trying to slip in under people’s radars is deceptive and slimy.

Like your email to me, your Web site is clearly and unequivocally designed to give the impression that you’re an entrenched, established organization. There’s nothing on the site about the fact that you’ve just launched, nor is there any historical information about you. Where did you come from? How long have you been around? What was the impetus for the creation of your organization? How long have you been working in progressive journalism? What are your progressive credentials? What are your journalism credentials? What are the biographies and qualifications of your leadership team and board of directors (neither anyone on your board nor your executive director have any easily found information about them on the Web)? All of this information is needed for people to be able to properly evaluate the credibility of your organization. Maybe after you’ve been around for a few years, your work will speak for itself, but it’s deceptive and slimy to pretend that it does when it really doesn’t.

How do I know that you just launched? Because when I searched yesterday, there wasn’t a single link to your Web site anywhere on the internet that isn’t controlled by you (i.e., your Facebook page, Twitter feed). Did you think nobody would notice that you sprang out of nowhere?

When I look up the whois information for Brave New Foundation, just as an example, I see real contact information about real people who work for that organization. In contrast, when I look up your whois information, I see:

Registration Private
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
Phone:+1.4806242599
FAX:+1.4806242598
Email:NATIONOFCHANGE.ORG@domainsbyproxy.com

What (or who) are you trying to hide?

If you think I’m going to want to have anything to do with an organization that proudly lists Noam Chomsky as one of its authors, you’re very much confused. He’s a nutcase and a crackpot, and any progressive who thinks he’s anywhere near on the same page as Chomsky is a progressive I want nothing to do with, thank you very much.

Your Web site claims, “We are directly funded by small donations from the public whom we serve. We believe that this distinction is essential to the production of reliable journalism and truly independent thought.” However, since you just sprang yourselves on the world yesterday, clearly none of the “public whom [you] serve” has had the opportunity to donate yet, and yet you’ve somehow managed to find the money to hire a staff, build a kick-ass Web site hosted in the Amazon cloud (which isn’t free), and do a big email blast which also isn’t free. Who bankrolled the creation of your organization? Who’s continuing to pouring money into it until it is really able to support itself from “small donations,” if indeed that ever occurs?

As far as I can tell, your mailing address is a private home within a housing development. What’s up with that?

Your Web site makes reference to your Bylaws, but said Bylaws are not published in full anywhere on the site.

Your Web site claims that you are a 501(c)3 organization, but neither Network for Good’s nor GuideStar’s database of all registered 501(c)3 charities lists you (at least not under the name “Nation of Change”, and rather than providing your EIN on your Web site, you say, “Your donation email receipt will include all relevant tax information, including the NationofChange Tax EIN number.” Again, what are you trying to hide? Why haven’t you published your EIN on your Web site?

Are you aware that BBB standards for charitable accountability require a minimum of five voting members? Your board has only four, one of which is your executive director, an arrangement which is discouraged by the BBB and charity watchdogs for reasons which should be obvious.

Should we be concerned about the fact that your Director of Development has the same last name as your Executive Director? Are they both paid positions? Nepotism is a big problem in poorly run charities.

For all I know, a year or two from now I will be awestruck by the good your organization has done after springing from out of nowhere. But right now, I’m not awestruck. Instead, I’m suspicious. Really, really suspicious. Is that the first impression you wanted to make on your potential supporters?

Sincerely,

Jonathan Kamens

[Simulblogged.]

The commenter gave the name “Diane Pearce Votes for Obama Again” and linked to my.barackobama.com. I thought it was slightly weird, but not weird enough to merit further investigation.

Then, three hours later, another comment came in on a different blog posting, this time from “Diane Pearce Loves Barack Obama”: “All I know is that I work at a large Pharmaceutical corporation in Clayton NC and I endroce Barack Obama with all my being. I would love for all my friends and colleagues to re-elect Obama in 2012!! I LOVE YOU OBAMA.”

That exceeded my weirdness threshold, so I looked into it a bit further.

The two comments gave two different email addresses, Reitter@gmail.com and Lipovsky@gmail.com, both of which appear to be based on people’s names and neither of which is related to the full name given by the commenter.

One of the comments was posted from an IP address in the United Arab Emirates. The other was posted from Indonesia.

I Googled for pages matching “Diane Pearce” and Obama, and there were 264 matches, many of which were similar comments. I did the same Google search a half hour later, and the count was up to 270.

Someone is clearly astroturfing here. The motives for this, and whether the people doing it are in reality trying to help or hurt Obama, are left as an exercise to the reader.

Diane Pearce Votes for Obama Again my.barackobama.com Reitter@gmail.com 86.96.226.22

To the editor:

It is infuriating to see rich people, who can afford to give back their imaginary “profits” from Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, whining about the actions of Irving Picard, the trustee for Bernie Madoff’s defunct firm.

As the Herald noted, Picard isn’t suing people who can’t afford to give the money back. In contrast, many of the victims for whom Picard is trying to recover assets were literally impoverished by Madoff.

Any profits withdrawn by Madoff’s “investors” were fraudulent. As the trustee for Madoff’s defunct firm, Picard is required by law to do everything in his power to recover those profits to help other victims. Blaming Picard for what he is doing is as absurd as blaming the police for recovering a stolen car and returning it to its rightful owner.

Picard is even permitted to sue investors for more than just their profit if they knew or should have known that it was a scam. Plenty of the people Picard is suing are sufficiently savvy that they should have known something was fishy. Rather than complaining, they should be happy that they, unlike most of the victims, got back their initial stake, and that Picard isn’t suing them for more.

Jonathan Kamens
Brighton

My wife would say that they took out the last paragraph because I tried to make two points in my letter instead of just one, and removing the second point makes the first one stronger. I suppose she’s right. But I can’t fathom why they added the extra “Bernie” in the first paragraph.

Many people are disappointed in Barack Obama for not standing up to his opponents. The previous administration had spent eight years ignoring the will and desires of half the population, and now it was time to turn the tables and give the other half a taste of their own medicine. If only Obama had turned the thumbscrews a little tighter on a few recalcitrant moderates, he could have gotten any legislation he wanted through Congress, the opposition be damned. Obama was not liberal enough / strong enough / smart enough to do the right thing.

In fact, Obama has been doing exactly the right thing. He knows that what most threatens us now is not economics, war, or terrorism. Obama has seen the enemy, and it is us.

What would Obama gain by forcing his policies through Congress without regard for the opposition? He’d gain four, or if he’s very lucky eight, years of those policies. Then out he’d go, supplanted by a wave of anti-incumbent anger, and the cycle would start all over again, with even worse divisiveness and partisanship, and with his successor forcing his policies through Congress and undoing everything Obama had accomplished.

What makes our country strong is in our very name. We are the United States of America. As Abraham Lincoln reminded us in 1858, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Now, 150 years later, we’re in danger of proving Lincoln right.

Someone has to be the first to reach across the aisle not because he has to, but because he wants to. Someone has to be the first to break the cycle of anger, hostility, and segregation which is weakening the very bedrock of our nation.

Barack Obama’s election in 2008 was revolutionary. His reelection in 2012 will be revolutionary as well, because he will be reelected not for what he accomplished despite the opposition, but rather what he accomplished with them.

I am proud to have supported Barack Obama in 2008, and I am proud to continue supporting him now. Barack Obama is still my president, because no matter what kind of American you are, he’s your president too.

[Simulblogged on The Daily Kos.]

Question 1: Repeal the alcohol sales tax

Question 1 is an attempt to roll back the recently enacted sales tax on alcoholic beverages. In my opinion, the arguments against this question distributed by the Secretary of the Commonwealth (as required by law) are persuasive:

Alcohol is not a necessity and does not deserve a special tax exemption. The only goods in Massachusetts exempt from the sales tax are necessities like food, clothing, and prescriptions. If anything should be taxed, products like cigarettes and alcohol should be.

Revenues from the alcohol tax provide dedicated funding for healthcare services for more than 100,000 residents with behavioral health problems. Massachusetts has some of the highest rates of alcohol and drug abuse in the country – the last thing we need is to take money away from prevention and treatment services to make alcohol more accessible. The alcohol tax helps saves lives by reducing teen drinking and funding treatment services to help people beat addictions and get their lives back on track.

Nearly every state has a sales tax on alcohol in addition to excise taxes. Massachusetts faces a serious budget deficit; don’t give alcohol a special exemption.

Question 2: Repeal “Chapter 40B”

Question 2 would repeal the Massachusetts affordable housing law. No one is claiming that Chapter 40B is perfect, but the ballot question would not fix it or enact a better alternative. Rather, it would simply eliminate the existing law, thus leaving a serious legislative vacuum.

I join many members of the clergy, JALSA, and many, many other people and organizations in opposing this ballot question.

In contrast, there are no endorsers or backing organizations listed on the site supporting the question.

If they were transparent about who is backing them, and if they had put a question on the ballot mandating an alternative system for guaranteeing the construction of affordable housing, as opposed to merely suggesting on their Web site how the problem might be dealt with were 40B to be repealed, then I might consider supporting them. As it is, however, that’s simply out of the question.

It appears that the members of the “Coalition to Repeal Chapter 40B” are to a large extent organizations that formed to oppose specific Chapter 40B developments. In some cases, the developments they oppose are in the early enough stages that repealing 40B would shut them down. This looks like classic NIMBY.

Question 3: Roll back the income tax to 3%

This question is spearheaded by Carla Howell, who is, to be frank, one of Massachusetts’s most prominent nutcase Libertarians. It is difficult to take seriously anything she says or does.

The state simply cannot afford to cut revenue by $2.5 billion.

Even were this ballot question to pass, the legislature would have no choice but to pass new legislation restoring the previous tax rates, because the Commonwealth would be simply unable to operate on the amount of revenue Howell seems to think is appropriate.