Spotlight on the Senatorfold

Looks like Scott Brown is becoming more and more like Mitt Romney--his positions change whenever it is convenient.  Thought he was a moderate?  Maybe he was.  Well he's not any more.

The senator, who probably hasn't looked at the bill he supports, simply didn't believe it. Brown kept arguing that the Blunt Amendment is only about religious freedom. He's wrong. 

The Republican proposal aims to allow all private-sector employers to deny any health services that businesses might find morally objectionable. Do you work for a grocery store owner who opposes contraception? You're out of luck. How about an accounting firm that doesn't like HIV tests? Too bad. Are you an employee at a factory that finds cervical cancer screenings offensive? Good luck to you.

--The Maddow Blog - Scott Brown stumbles on policy basics  

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We know he loves attention!

Excellent analysis of the political and media game that Scott Brown has been playing--one in which he says the "moderate" thing, even tho it belies his conservative votes, and in so doing gathers credit from the media and thus successfully paints himself as a palateable "independent", electable/voteable by the MA voter.  This time, it's about Planned Parenthood and Title X funding, but there's a pattern with his votes on unemployment, wall street regulation and on and on.  Worth a full read but here's an excerpt:

Generally, he’s received no coverage at all of his votes selling out women and the middle class, while the press falls all over itself sending out his spin of himself as a “moderate” charting his own course. Yesterday we found Brown back in the limelight – the real hub of his career. He releases a statement suggesting his support for Planned Parenthood – a statement in complete contradiction to his voting record, and that may not even mean what he’s suggesting.

I will use this space to update items Of Interest regarding the Senatorfold. On going.
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• Scott Brown Puts Teachers, Police Officers, Firefighters In The 1% (1/21/2012) 
• Senator Scott Brown’s crass warfare - Metro - The Boston Globe 
• If I’m correctly reading Brown’s bizarre logic, Warren is guilty of being a class traitor? She shouldn’t be able to make money because she grew up relatively poor? Or once she did make money, she should have become an advocate for the rich? 

Scott Brown's Romney-like changing positions on Abortion and Health Care, depending on who he's standing in front of: 

• EXCLUSIVE: As State Rep, Scott Brown Voted For Contraception Mandate Stronger Than Obama’s | ThinkProgress (2/14/2012)
• The Maddow Blog - Scott Brown stumbles on policy basics (2/16/2012) -- Brown kept arguing that the Blunt Amendment is only about religious freedom. He's wrong. The Republican proposal aims to allow all private-sector employers to deny any health services that businesses might find morally objectionable. Do you work for a grocery store owner who opposes contraception? You're out of luck. How about an accounting firm that doesn't like HIV tests? Too bad. Are you an employee at a factory that finds cervical cancer screenings offensive? Good luck to you.
• Elizabeth Warren hits Scott Brown over birth control, health care - The Plum Line - The Washington Post (2/14/2012)   - Asked whether it would really gain traction in a campaign dominated by econmic issues, Warren pushed back, arguing that this is an economic issue.  “Here’s an example of giving power to insurance companies and corporations to undercut basic health care coverage. I’m going to fight for families to keep that coverage. The economics around health care are huge for families.” … Much of the commentary on this issue has focused on the political vulnerability of Obama and Dems... But Warren’s unapologetic and aggressive use of it in perhaps the most closely watched Senate race in the country could begin to shift that storyline. [Snort. -hw]

On Popularity, beatability, polls

• WBUR Poll: Brown, Warren Running Neck And Neck In Senate Race | WBUR (2/16/2012) 
• The unbeatable Republican? - War Room - (high polling, very; 3/2011) Salon.com
• Josh Gee: "Senator Brown is in significant trouble for reelection, and that Democrats in Massachusetts and Washington should be much more confident about our chances" (April 2011)

On Climate/Environment

• It's the People's Air (BoGlobe letter, 4/2011)
• Think Progress: Fact Check: Scott Brown Voted To Hurt Sick Children 5/2011 (on LWV controversial ad)
• "A Little More Work Please", Brian McGory (BoGlobe, May 2011)
• You’re throwing tantrum after fit, revealing a whiny side that had been hidden in last year’s campaign. Senator, calm down.
• Brown Pretends Undermining the Clean Air Act Isn't Bad for People's Health, NRDC, 5/2011
• ignoring the health implications of his vote is equivalent to someone saying they voted to lower the age for buying cigarettes not because they want kids to get lung disease but because it’s good for commerce
• Scott Brown's League of Women Voters Problem, NRDC 5/2011
• when you flip flop and go from favoring the public health to siding with polluters,  you have to expect that change of heart will be noticed

Scott Brown's Friends

• Brown begs David Koch for $$, (video) March 2011

Osama Bin Laden Death Photo

• David Bernstein, Phoenix, "Scott the Dupe?" May 2011
• I'm just flabbergasted by this -- it seems that US Senator Scott Brown, who sits on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, as well as the Senate Armed Services Committee -- went around earlier suggesting that he had seen in briefings photographs proving Osama bin Laden's death, when in fact he had seen the hoax "dead Osama" photos you and I and everyone else saw on Facebook.  The earlier claims were in the context of whether the Obama administration should release photos of bin Laden's death, which makes it hard to imagine why Brown would refer to photos he had seen in the public realm.
• #ScottoSawIt, BMG, May 2011

Economy, Jobs...

• Wall Street-backed senator can’t explain why he opposes financial reform, asks reporter what’s wrong with it | The Raw Story (Apr 2010) http://bit.ly/LNxFZl

Campaign Petulance

• Scott "Cover Boy " Brown Can Sure Dish It But He Can't Take It (8/11/2012) http://bit.ly/NyZQHB -- ("wefare voters" story, states' rights)
• “Apparently ‘injecting levity’ into serious politics is something that only Scott Brown’s campaign is allowed to do,” he continued. Scott Brown’s campaign says Democratic tweet is a slight to Springfield - Political Intelligence - A national political and campaign blog from The Boston Globe - Boston.com (2/6/2012) 
• Scott Brown’s ‘People’s Pledge’ not written by senator but third party - Political Intelligence - A national political and campaign blog from The Boston Globe - Boston.com (2/13/2012)

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On the difficult topic of his childhood abuse

This essay by Eileen McNamara is an excellent critique of the underlying assumptions and now storyline being proffered by Brown's book-selling narrative about his sexual and physical abuse as a child.  I think she is a little hard on him for the jokes he tells now (re: the Senatorfold shot and feeling exposed) but spot-on when it comes to the articulation of a POV that alienates other victims from their experiences if they do not live up to the rugged individual fight-back example Brown sets up by his telling. Excerpts below, full read recommended:

• Scott Brown: Campaign Confidential - Boston Magazine, Eileen McNamara, 3/2011
• Make no mistake: There can be only compassion for a boy abandoned by his father, kicked around by brutish stepdads, shipped out to resentful relatives by a beleaguered mother, set upon by neighborhood bullies, and molested by a camp counselor. But the bromides Brown peddles as the lessons to be learned—self-reliance and human resilience—undermine the hard-won recognition that violence and sexual abuse are not private traumas to be overcome by force of will; they are pressing public health emergencies that demand a communal (dare I say governmental?) response.
• Brown claims he wrote his book for people like them, to reassure them that “we each create our own playing fields and that we are all capable of overcoming whatever challenges might otherwise hold us back.” Because he “knit back stronger in the broken places,” he tells us he would not change his childhood—not the sexual assaults, not the violence perpetrated by psychopaths against his mother and kid sister. I suspect his mother and sister might feel differently, but this is Scott Brown’s story, not theirs. It is the story of a very special man, unique among the sexual assault survivors I have met during a long reporting career in not devoutly wishing that the abuse had never happened.