Dan Dunn’s Podium

So on Tuesday Massachusetts will have its first open Senate election since 1984.  A 26 year wait, and this is the best crop of candidates we can come up with? Kinda depressing, if you ask me.
The candidate I’m most passionate about is Scott Brown – and why he should never be a US senator.
First and [...]

I was watching state Senator Galluccio’s legal problems as 2009 drew to a close, and I cynically was thinking to myself about how my post would be different if he made it to 2010 before he resigned.  And he did make it to 2010, making half of my lines obsolete.  Multiple arrests, multiple innocent victims [...]

Ted Kennedy is dead, and that is all I have to say on the topic of Ted Kennedy.  But the questions of who will succeed him and how that person will be selected – now those are things I can write about.
The last time the Republicans won a Senate seat in Massachusetts was 1972: Edward [...]

Today former Massachusetts House Speaker Sal DiMasi was indicted for “conspiracy, honest services mail fraud, aiding and abetting, and honest services wire fraud” related to the awarding of a multi-million dollar contract to Cognos software. For most of us, this isn’t a shock.  The Globe has been writing investigative stories about this for a year [...]

Dick Cheney has been actively defending his administration’s policies.  He knows (I think) that those policies were soundly rejected by the American people last year, but that hasn’t stopped him from trying to convince everyone that he was right.  Maybe he’s making his case for the historians?
One of his repeated themes is that the policies [...]

Imagine for a moment that you’re an 18-year-old US citizen.  By law, you can:

buy a gun
get married
have kids
join the military
go to war

You cannot:

buy a beer
get a credit card

That latest entry is a new one.  It’s one of the not-very-publicized sections of the credit card reform act that sailed through the house today, 361-64.  When the [...]

I’ve been getting more and more annoyed as the AIG bonus scandal has cranked up into a hysterical tornado of indignant politicians performing before the similarly self-indulgent press corp.  Let’s take a step back and look at what’s happened so far.

The government has handed over $170 billion to AIG.  That’s $170,000,000,000.
Less than .1% of that [...]

I worked for my fraternity, Alpha Delta Phi, for a couple years in the mid-90’s.  Our chapter at the University of Chicago was coming through a rough period back then, and I spent many an evening there talking to officers, giving advice at chapter meetings, and working with alumni.  And I made some life-long friends [...]

My mother is running for Town Clerk in Windham.  She’s on the ballot against the long-time incumbent and the incumbent’s deputy.  She’s got a website up, Betty Dunn for Town Clerk.  On the site she articulates why she’s the right woman for the job.  Please give it a read and contact her with any questions.
So, [...]

My friends and I play a silly game online.  We send each other news headlines on instant messenger under the headline of “Real or Onion.”  To win, you have to fool your opponent into mis-classifying the headline.  ”Congressman Wants to Talk with Rodriguez” – it’s real, on nytimes.com right now.  ”Genetic  Experiment Goes Horribly Right” [...]