Lone Democratic Senate primary opponent Marissa DeFranco dings Warren on response to Native American ancestry

Massachusetts Democratic primary Senate candidate Marisa DeFranco (photo: The Boston Herald)

Note : This was originally aggregated from Masslive.com on May 18, 2012

By Shira Schoenberg,

Political Correspondent Masslive. com

Marisa DeFranco, a Massachusetts Senate candidate, is criticizing her Democratic primary rival Elizabeth Warren for    Warren’s inability to handle questions about her Native American ancestry.

“The problem for me is the campaign’s lack of ability to have a clear and consistent message about this issue,” DeFranco told MassLive.com. “They didn’t get in front of it when it first broke. They had several different responses.”

At one point, Warren said she could not remember listing herself as a minority when applying for a job, and she was unaware that Harvard had promoted her as a minority professor. Later, Warren said she is proud of her Native American heritage, and she listed her minority ancestry in a directory so she would be invited to events to meet others like herself.

Warren has not presented proof of her Native American heritage. Bits of the story have trickled out slowly over the last three weeks as additional documents surfaced showing that Warren was listed as a minority at the University of Pennsylvania and at Harvard Law School.

Check out this story and more posted on our new ‘Dispatch Politics Page’                

Republicans won’t let go of Warren’s ancestry issue

Massachusetts Democratic Senate Candidate Elizabeth Warren after speaking at the 31st annual ‘Noho Pride Celebration’ in Northampton. (Photo: Alex Ross).

 The latest controversy on what if any role Massachusetts Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren’s Native American ancestry played in  her hiring as a Professor,  is  a story on which Republicans are not letting go. 

Almost every day for more than two weeks, the Brown campaign or a Republican surrogate has highlighted the latest bit of news to emerge on the subject, often citing articles on conservative websites in a bid to coax more coverage from the mainstream news media. Warren’s failure to offer a full and concise answer on what role her ancestry has played in her professional career has left an opening that has allowed the questions to linger.

On Monday, Brown’s campaign manager, Jim Barnett, held a telephone briefing with reporters, offering a near exhaustive catalogue of details about the issue and demanding anew that Warren release personnel records from her jobs at Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania law schools.

“The question here is not about Elizabeth Warren’s credentials, so much as it is about Elizabeth Warren’s integrity and truthfulness and willingness to be transparent,’’ Barnett said.

The Valley Advocate’s ‘Best of the valley readers poll 2012′ results

   It might be a little late but due to the unexpectedly high number of views that I saw the ‘Valley Advocate’s Best of    readers poll 2011′  get when I posted it on here last year, I thought it would be appropriate to make my first post after several weeks of reluctant exile from the blogosphere this years winners in what has become a tradition of sorts in Western Massachusetts.

For all those outside the region who don’t know, the Valley Advocate is an immensely popular weekly publication of news, commentary, and events listings in Western Massachusetts and Southern Vermont that is about as ubiquitous as a Bible is in Vatican city.

Every year between January and mid April readers are encouraged to go online and cast a ballot in one of  nine broad categories for 177 businesses, services, places, or products unique to the region with superlatives range from the best Bakery, to the best auto repair shop, the place serving the best margaritas, the best Financial services and just about everything else you can envision.

Eventually voting is then stopped and  all results can be tabulated and later published in an April issue of the advocate , and locations dubbed ‘the best’ then often display their badge as a seal of local pride in their establishment windows and in their advertising. So this years winners are…

Back and Blogging

Image from Chohnio.blogspot.com

 

Greetings readers. If you have been checking the Dispatch out lately you will notice that because my computer no    longer connected to the internet and thus I only had access to the internet for two to three hours a day when at a  library. Add to that work, the time needed to write-up stories for my position with the Shelburne Falls and West County Independent  and my continued search for a job– have all left me little time for blogging. So, about the only thing I had been posting were copies of my stories for the Independent.

However just last week I finally scraped enough money together to get a new laptop and scrap the old Compaq (by the way I encourage you to  never buy a Compaq). In the coming days and weeks I will be producing more content for the Dispatch. In the next few week  I will begin  posting content more regularly  covering the May 12  annual LGBT Pride celebration  in Northampton, hopefully attending ‘Strange creek’ the final weekend of May, and ‘Yurt Fest 2012′ in Charlemont, Massachusetts (if you don’t know where Charlemont is in Massachusetts don’t feel bad I didn’t either until I began covering it as part of the Mohawk Trail Regional School District). 

Mohawk Trail Regional School Committee news

            Donations accepted

ASHFIELD—At its monthly meeting Tuesday, April 10 the Mohawk Trail Regional School Committee voted to accept the following:

• A gift of $1,099 from the Mohawk Athletic Association for a treadmill for the new weight room at the high school.
• Donations amounting to $450 with $100 from Caldwell Bank, $200 from Florence Savings Bank and $150 from the Mary Lyon Foundation toward covering the price tag of the Mohawk High School Science Fair in February.
• Mohawk Musical Association donations totaling $1300, with $500 going towards the music department’s musical revolving account, $400 for the Department’s field trip account, and $400 to defray the cost of a Middle School field trip to Six Flags on Saturday, May 19.
• Donation of pine lumber by James Kelly to the Mohawk Trail Regional School woodshop program

Editor’s Note: Internet has been down on my computer

If you are wondering about the absecence  of recent posts and content posted on the ‘Dispatch’ over the past few weeks it is because my laptop is for some reason unable to connect to the internet. This will likely mean I have to buy a new laptop. I should be getting one in the next few weeks. Stay tuned though and sorry.

Editor’s Note: My first two pieces written for the ‘Shelburne Falls and West County Independent’

View from atop the hills of Charlemont at Berkshire East Ski resort, where I took photographs on my first day of work at the 'Shelburne Falls and West County Independent'. Photo taken by Alex Ross.

I know I haven’t had any new content posted in about a week now but I have been busy in my new position as a part-time Correspondent with the Shelburne Falls and West County Independent, a small bi-weekly community paper which covers a handful of towns in Franklin County. 

Berkshire radio station pulls Rush Limbaugh from its lineup

 

photo from search.com

A Pittsfield radio station became the second to drop the ‘Rush Limbaugh Show’ from its weekday programming, a week after he called Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke a ‘slut’ and ‘a prostitute’ on his show.

Management at 1420AM WBEC announced on Monday March    5 that the conservative nationally syndicated talk show will no longer fill its noon to 3pm time slot, due to Limbaugh’s remarks which the station says go beyond ‘the bounds of civility’.

“Rush’s defamatory and disparaging remarks about Ms. Fluke clearly violated the standards we have set for our stations and left us with no choice but to remove him from our airwaves,” said WBEC Marketing Manager Peter Barry in a written statement posted on the station’s website.

Primary Wire: ‘Super Tuesday’

Sorry I haven’t added any news stories in the past two days, but I      have been busy. Anyway from Massachusetts to Georgia to Idaho, and Alaska; ten states will be making thier voices heard in the ongoing Republican Presidential nominating process.

Tonight is that quadrennial event that begins the national  near Darwinian struggle with the arrows of campaign cash, good press, and the feeling of inevitablity fed by primary and caucus victories; that will take a large step towards deciding who the Republican candidate will be that faces President Barack Obama in Nov.

Based on both on my own anecdotal evidence as well as other reports, turnout and enthusiasm in the Massachusetts Republican primary has been lackluster. This could be due to the fact that only 11.33% of Bay state voters are Republicans (though voters unaffiliated with any political party can vote in the primaries), and the fact that the candidates have avoided campaigning here has generated little enthusiasm or even knowledge that the primary is today.

Primary/Cacus Wire: Washington State

Pic from blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com

Before Tuesday’s coast to coast Republican primaries and  caucuses in ten states across the nation, Washington state is holding its caucuses tonight. Forty delegates will later be awarded to the winner at a statewide convention in May.

In a press release from the Washington State Secretary’s office, it is predicted that 60,000 Washington registered voters will take part in caucuses at an estimated 6,700 precincts across the state. The Democratic caucuses in which President Obama is unchallenged, will be held April 15.

Fresh off wins in the Arizona and Michigan primaries Tuesday, as well as the unofficial Wyoming Republican caucuses; a recent PPP opinion poll of state Republicans shows Romney with a five point lead over former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, who had an eleven point lead in a poll in mid February. Fellow candidates former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Congressman Ron Paul trail behind them.