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Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick signaled Sunday that he would be open to a White House bid at some point, though the governor has previously ruled out seeking the presidency in 2016. Asked in an interview whether he could see himself as a national candidate — not necessarily in 2016 — the second-term Democrat responded: “Maybe. Maybe.” “That’s a decision I have to make along with my wife of 30 years, and she’s a tough one to convince,” Patrick said. Prodded further, the former Justice Department official responded: “Let’s just see what time tells.” Only the second African-American elected governor of...

Gov. Deval Patrick on Tuesday announced $52 million in state funding to help cities and towns combat the effects of climate change. The single largest piece of the funding will be $40 million in municipal grants given to cities and towns to make their energy infrastructure more resilient using clean energy technology. There will also be $10 million for coastal infrastructure and dam repair and $2 million for a variety of other projects. Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Richard Sullivan, of Westfield, said the money will be spread out across the state. The grants will be available to cities and...

A top Beacon Hill lawmaker wants answers from the Patrick administration on the ongoing glitches, delays and error messages that have plagued the state’s woeful $69 million Obamacare website — which stumbled into its third month yesterday with continued flat sign-up rates. “I’ll definitely talk to folks in the administration and see where we are with our experience right now,” said state Rep. Jeffrey Sanchez (D-Jamaica Plain), the co-chairman of the Joint Committee on Public Health. “It’s the issue of the day — technology and health care. Absolutely, we should be taking a look.” Even as the Obama administration declared...

Tears were shed and Hitler was quoted on Wednesday, as ethnic tensions erupted at the State House and threatened to derail Governor Deval Patrick’s nominee for a seat on the Superior Court. The charged struggle centers around the leadership role that the nominee, Joseph S. Berman, has played in the Anti-Defamation League, a national organization dedicated to combating anti-Semitism and other forms of discrimination. Berman’s nomination stirred opposition because, for years, the organization refused to label as genocide the slaughter of Armenians by Ottoman Turks between 1915 and 1923, a stance that angered the Armenian community. But in 2007, the...

When the stars come out, it is not always nighttime. Take, for instance, the W.E.B. Du Bois Medal ceremony on Wednesday afternoon at Sanders Theatre. The six medalists included a White House adviser (Valerie Jarrett), a playwright with a Pulitzer Prize (Tony Kushner), a U.S. representative called “the conscious of Congress” (John Lewis), an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (Sonia Sotomayor), the commissioner of the National Basketball Association (David Stern), and a Hollywood director with three Oscars (Steven Spielberg). The medals, awarded since 2000, go to writers, artists, philanthropists, and others for outstanding contributions to African-American culture. Jarrett...

At first blush, the Massachusetts “tech tax” appears similar to tax regimes in other states. However, the Massachusetts tax on computer software services has a unique set of implications—and would likely have an unprecedented impact on the state’s tech economy. The software services tax or “tech tax” passed in July would tax all computer software services, including cloud computing and data storage operations. The legislature intended for the tax to raise $160 million for transportation improvements, but many believe the wide range of services eligible for taxation coupled with the law’s ambiguous language would yield upwards of $500 million. Massachusetts...

Democratic State Senator Dan Sutton of Flandreau, South Dakota accused of fondling a male page. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/24/AR2007012401966.html Carl Stanley McGee, 38, prominent gay activist, assistant secretary for policy and planning and top aid to democrat governor Deval Patrick of Massachuttsettes, accused of sexually assaulting a 15 year old boy in a steam room at a Florida resort. http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/general/view.bg?articleid=1072114 Bernard Vincent Ward, former chief legislative aide to Senator Barbara Boxer, self proclaimed "Lion of the Left" on bay area radio, admitted transgressions too numerous to mention. http://prosites-prs.homestead.com/ward_new.pdf Davidson County Democratic Party Chairman Rodney Mullins resigned Thursday morning amid child pornography allegations, according...

Gov. Deval Patrick is a Democratic “rock star” who — scandals be damned — could launch a 2016 White House run if he chooses, say Democrats undeterred by this week’s double whammy of dirt to hit Patrick’s administration and political future. “This will pass like a storm cloud in the summertime,” Democratic strategist Steve McMahon said of revelations the state’s escalating drug lab scandal has tainted the cases of as many as 40,000-plus defendants and that the state ranks in the top three nationwide in welfare handouts. “If he decided to run, and I take him on his word he’s...

Deval Patrick I bet you're a lot like me. You care about what we've accomplished together because you know it's good for the country. And it frustrates you to no end that there are people out there spending millions of dollars to lie about it, because they think it helps their politics. Just look at what some are saying about Obamacare. Here's a reform that improves the health of both American families and American businesses. But some want to move us backwards -- at any cost. ... This isn't new to you -- and today, I'm asking you to keep...

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick took a solemn tone as he spoke with reporters at the State House on Monday about the verdict in the George Zimmerman trial. "It's just sad," he said. "I don't know what you say to a young black boy, or mothers of young black boys if the message of this is that you can be pursued down the street by someone with a gun and if you try to defend yourself that person is justified in shooting you dead." A Florida jury acquitted Zimmerman on Saturday of charges relating to the 2012 murder of 17-year-old Trayvon...

With new statistics showing a heavy reliance on food stamps in cities such as Holyoke and Springfield, Gov. Deval L. Patrick said he is concerned about a move in Congress to cut the assistance program for low-income families including tens of thousands of people in Massachusetts. "I'm worried about the future of the program," Patrick told The Republican. "I am worried about the fact that so many people need the program. And that has to do with the bottom falling out of the global economy and our climbing out of that, slowly but surely." Patrick, a two-term Democrat, said his...

Behold the single strangest interview ever given by a governor with at least a possibility of running for the presidency at some point. Both the Boston Herald and Politico highlight the inebriation Deval Patrick indulged after the Tsarnaev brothers had been neutralized as their leads, but the Governor of Massachusetts could be forgiven for celebrating a bit afterward. But what was he doing while the state’s capital city was on lockdown? Taking a nap — until Barack Obama demanded to know what was going on:

Tipsville . . . Sneed is told that Attorney General Eric “Fast and Furious” Holder’s days are numbered. Sneed hears President Barack Obama, who is this/close to Holder, has set his sights on Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick as a possible replacement “when the heat dies down on the latest hot-button scandals to hit the U.S. Justice Department,” said a top White House source. Last year, Holder became a hot button over a congressional probe of the sale of government guns to drug cartels. This time it’s the double whammy of an IRS scandal and the U.S. Justice Department’s seizure of...

Tipsville . . . Sneed is told that Attorney General Eric “Fast and Furious” Holder’s days are numbered. Sneed hears President Barack Obama, who is this/close to Holder, has set his sights on Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick as a possible replacement “when the heat dies down on the latest hot-button scandals to hit the U.S. Justice Department,” said a top White House source. SNIP “The president will wait until the heat dies down — and a little time has passed beyond that — before he does anything to Holder because Holder is a close pal, and that’s a big deal...

Shortly after Barack Obama won reelection in November, New Jersey governor Chris Christie pointed out that Republicans’ cloudy political prospects had a bright silver lining. “One of the reasons you have 30 Republican governors in America, and why we’re the only organization to add Republican strength,” Christie said, “is because people see us getting things done.” Christie’s stance countered most of the elite postelection commentary, which gleefully pronounced the Republican Party’s political irrelevance. But the governor was right. Since Obama first took office in 2008, Republicans have picked up a net nine governorships, bringing their total to 30 states,...

A new Quinnipiac poll comparing potential Democratic candidates for 2016 comes to a familiar conclusion: Hillary Clinton, if she decides to run, would absolutely dominate the competition. The poll has 65 percent of potential Democratic voters picking Hillary Clinton as their presidential nominee in 2016. That's in line with multiple recent polls — including from Gallup, PPP, and PublicMind — showing Clinton as the overwhelming favorite in a Democratic primary. What's interesting about the Quinnipiac poll is that it conducted a separate survey in which Clinton was removed from the race. Which Democrats come out on top if Clinton decides...

Reprinted from PeaceandTolerance.org. “This is alarming, but I’d need to see a smoking gun.” That’s what a Boston Rabbi said after we’d spent an hour in his office walking him through mounds of evidence that linked the leaders of the Islamic Society of Boston (ISB) to terrorism and hate speech against Jews and Christians. He wouldn’t speak publicly about the radical leadership of the ISB mosque, he explained, for fear of giving offense, for fear of breaking with a certain understanding about these things, for fear of being labeled a bigot. For 10 years, this reluctance to speak honestly about...

The Brothers Tsarnaev, alleged terrorists behind the Boston Marathon bombing, collected some amount of state and, possibly, federal welfare benefits. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, his wife, and daughter collected welfare until 2012, according to Massachusetts state officials. The exact amounts the brothers received is unknown, however, because Gov. Deval Patrick's administration is refusing to release information regarding their case. State agencies “flatly refused” to provide information regarding the taxpayer-funded lifestyle of the 26-year-old man and his accused accomplice brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, the Boston Herald reports. The Brothers Tsarnaev seem to have been only marginally attached to the labor market. It is...

Gov. Deval Patrick defended his administration’s refusal to release financial aid, welfare, unemployment and other information about the suspected Boston Marathon bombers today.

The Patrick administration clamped down the lid yesterday on Herald requests for details of Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s government benefits, citing the dead terror mastermind’s right to privacy.