Op-ed

Early Thursday evening, approximately 80 Somerville community members and affordable housing supporters gathered with sleeping bags, pillows and signs at the front steps of City Hall to protest the recent denial by the Zoning Board of Appeals of an affordable housing proposal that would have provided stable housing to six homeless families in Somerville. “In my back yard!” was just one of the chants that echoed against the brick building as Alderman filed past the crowd en route to their bimonthly Board of Alderman meeting.

Most of you will have missed a short article tucked away in yesterday's Boston Globe, which - when put in context - speaks volumes about our health care system. Robert Weisman reports that Harvard Pilgrim - Charlie Baker's former health insurance company - will be canceling all of its Medicare Advantage plans in Massachusetts and two other states, and will instead offer a plan allowing seniors to purchase supplemental coverage to traditional Medicare.

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. Anatole France, The Red Lily, 1894

The Boston Media Consortium, the self-organized media consortium of The Boston Globe, WCVB-TV, WHDH-TV, WGBH-TV, NECN, and WBUR, has just made crystal clear that our political system is indeed a pay-to-play racket.

Dueling federal deficit explanations. Traditional right wing folks are complaining about the danger now of the increasing deficit and how it’s going to undermine our economy. Many progressive folks find that really frustrating and want to get in their face about the fact that Clinton left things in the black and Bush took them deep into the red. But the question is: while the right wing doesn’t want to acknowledge Bush’s part, are our progressive folks prepared to acknowledge that the deficit is much worse because Obama has continued the very policies that Bush was burying us with?