There is a diary on the Recommended List which tells the story of Carlene Balderrama, a Massachusetts women who committed suicide as her house was facing foreclosure. This tragic event highlights the magnitude of the foreclosure crisis facing this country. Today you can help to avoid hearing more stories like hers.

I am posting a letter on behalf of David Grossman, Director of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, who has been pushing legislation that would help Massachusetts residents facing foreclosure. Here is the beginning.  

Massachusetts is right down to the wire on legislation that could stave off the foreclosure crisis. The legislation has strong support in the legislature – yet is stuck in the Judiciary Committee. If it doesn’t come out for a vote by July 31, it can’t be voted on again for nine months – and there will be catastrophic consequences, experts say.

Please follow after the jump for the rest of the letter and for how you can take action.

Some stories just shock you enough to have to mention something about them, to think they're more indicative of something than the singular tragedy for one family.  What I just read on Boston.com is one of those stories.

A 53 year old woman, a wife and mother, from Taunton, Massachusetts, faxed her mortgage company at 2:30 PM yesterday saying before the 5 PM auction of her home began she would be dead.  When the company received the fax they called police within an hour.  When the police got to the home, she was already dead, 1 1/2 hours before the auction would have started.

http://www.boston.com/...
(more)

I attended a Democratic Party Unity Rally in Worcester MA last night.  Come below the fold to see how an area where Hillary triumphed during the primary is coalescing around Barack Obama.

Mike, Lynne and I yakked it up on today's podcast with bike experts Cara Seiderman and Ken Fields of Cambridge, who are bike policy experts representing both government and citizen organizations. Among today's topics, we discussed the importance of people using bikes to meet at least some of their transportation needs - most times people leave the house, they're going 5 miles or less. Why not pedal with your own two feet? It's good for your body, great for the roads, even better for your wallets and beyond fantastic for the environment. Seriously, we all complain about having no time to do things like exercise - why not exercise during your commute?

More below the fold.

We'll call this a Massachusetts Case Study. Here's a little background info before we get to today's main point: dragging the business community along with us kicking and screaming.

When Massachusetts passed its major health care reform law, it wasn't quite as revolutionary as many people thought. Instead of trying to fix the systemic problems of health care, Massachusetts went after a bad symptom: the hundreds of thousands in the state without Health Care. Why? It's a politically popular thing to do, and HMOs enthusiastically supported the idea because who could pass up a little government corporate welfare in the quest to insure those who otherwise couldn't afford it? The Mass Health Care plan was a dream come true for the insurance industry.

However, as Ezra Klein notes, addressing health care access before you address health care costs adds perhaps insurmountable problems to the system, as the costs rise way above the rate of inflation and suddenly the state can't afford the new coverage. More on that here.

Breaking news as of 3PM, and perhaps a bigger news item in the dear ol' Commonwealth than the nation at large, but nonetheless.

http://www.boston.com/...

As this has the support of Governor Deval Patrick, this vote may clear the way for gay couples from other states to have marriages performed in Massachusetts that are legally recognized by the Commonwealth, which I imagine will have interesting repercussions when couples head back to Maine, or Arkansas, or Tennessee, or wherever else, and perhaps add another element to the debate.
(more)

Advocates for gay marriage in Massachusetts are urging lawmakers to repeal a 1913 law that prevents out of state gays and lesbians from receiving marriage licenses in the Bay State. Supporters of the repeal note that the original intent of the law was to prevent interracial couples from marrying.

The 1913 law was rescued from the proverbial dustbin of history by then-governor Mitt Romney and his conservative Democratic attorney general Tom Reilly in 2004 after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in 2003 that gays had a right to marry in the Commonwealth.

A) They both think resistance is futile.

B) Their aims are so devious that they make you feel dirty inside.

C) They both pick on easy targets.

D) All of the above.

Answers below the fold...

Listen live at 2:30 today, or over at LeftAhead anytime after the show. Here's the promo, from Mike:

Guest Christine Dorchak wants an immediate end to greyhound racing in Massachusetts and the nation. She heads a state and a national organization dedicated to that. She almost got a ban here in 2000. She'll sharpen your reasoning and pluck your heartstrings.

I'm looking forward to this - it should be an excellent show. I'll update the post after to put a few main bullet points of things from the show.

Also, I'll stick around in the comments until 2pm, then I have to get ready for the show.

Finally, read more about why Greyhound racing is so cruel and why it needs to be stopped.

(Cross-posted to Peaknix)

"Clop clop clop" the noise droned her to a quiet meditation as she and the horse lurched ahead of the others, a bit of a trot into some shade both she and the animal appreciated. Their makeshift wagon carried baskets, covered by white cloths, filled with aged goats cheese and fresh bread. She had pulled these toothsome grainy loaves from their earthen bread oven that morning, ducking as the poof of hot moisture blasted past the broken clay seal on the door.

-- do the jump --

No one ever said that politics was a schoolyard game, but the recent political climate and partisan polarization has made the election cycle more brutal than a high school contest. Just ask Barack Obama about his experience of unfounded rumors and personal attacks brought upon him by his rivals on both sides of the political spectrum. The attacks became so bad that the Democratic Presidential Nominee had to establish a website to combat attacks against his religion, heritage, and even his wife. Anyone who thought the locker room rumors were vile enough never had a spin with national politics.....

Forget Kafka.  Welcome to Massachusetts.  In the 1980s, it was known as Taxachusetts.  These days, it’s known as the state whose divorce laws are so out of whack and out-of-date that many people decide against marrying here - or marrying anyone anywhere whose alimony obligations originate here.  I’m one of them.  Gays celebrate their new right to marry, while two divorce lawyers tell me that the state’s laws are so extreme they have “a chilling effect on marriage.”  Prenups offer no guarantees.  Judges routinely ignore them.  

Hi all,

I don't know exactly why I am posting this, but I feel like telling my story. I know this is atypical for the Obama campaign.  I've read over and over again about how inclusive the Obama campaign is.  But for some reason in my little corner of Massachusetts, I haven't found this to be the case.  

A friend of mine who works for the Social Security Administration (SSA) just shared with me an official SSA document regarding the agency's new policy on same-sex marriage, in light of the legalization of same-sex marriages in Massachusets and (as of yesterday) California.  SSA staffers received the new policy today.  As you'll see in the policy, the SSA is being forced to change its policies regarding same-sex marriage in subtle but signicant ways. But overall, the policy shows in stark detail that we have a long, long way to go before full equality will be achieved for GLBT couples.

There is a story on CNN right now, with some analysis of gay marriage in Massachusetts, 4 years after it became legal.

Today the focus was on California of course, and the changes and new marriages going forward, but today also provided a good opportunity to look at how things have been going during the last few years.  There was a similar story in the NYTimes also, with lots of interviews with different couples.

This post was originally written for MTV's Choose Or Lose Street Team '08.

Katherine Patrick, the daughter of Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, is a courageous youth.  In the last year she has come out as a lesbian to her friends and family, and last week she came out to the whole world.  18-year-old Katherine Patrick did a sit down interview with Bay Windows, "New England's largest GLBT newspaper", to make the announcement, and the news has since been written about by the Boston Herald, the Boston Globe, the Associated Press, and countless other news outlets that reach across the globe.

I just finished reading a great story out of New England. The daughter of Gov. Deval Patrick, at 18 years of age, has come out in the press as a pre-emptive strike against any "gotcha" news stories. She did it on her terms with both her parents at her side.

What makes the story so great is that Gov. Patrick spent a great deal of time, and as the article says..political capital, fighting to protect the right of Gay and Lesbians to marry in his state. He did that without knowing that his own daughter was a lesbian.

"Because, of course, he didn’t know that I was gay then," the 18-year-old recalls. "So, for someone so publicly to fight for something that doesn’t even affect him was just like, ’That’s my dad,’ you know?" she says with a laugh. "That’s all I could think. I was very, very proud to be part of this family, and this state in general."

"It was great. I’m very glad," she adds, looking at her father. "Don’t cry, Dad." Patrick’s eyes are brimming with tears, prompting some good-natured teasing from his daughter. "He’s done some good things," she says with a laugh, patting his arm. "I appreciate it. Want a tissue? Oh, God. He’s a crier."