Who is Curt Schilling?

Curt Schilling is an overpaid, swell-headed, right wing baseball player for the Boston Red Sox, among others over the years.

He's washed up and no one will remember him in a few years.

Steve,

The problem with paying his employees as independent contractors is more than whether he provides health insurance. It is illegal to misclassify employees in order to avoid having to pay payroll taxes for them. It has been an issue for years and Mass. has some of the most defined laws in the country about who is an employee and who is a contractor. Someone with more legal knowledge than I have should really look into it.

Weak brew indeed, Steve. Is it some kind of litmus test as to whether a person knows or doesn't know whether an individual was born out of wedlock forty-some years ago?

A woman we know in our neighborhood just had a baby in November. I know the Dad, who's in med school in Grenada, and met his family when they were in town to celebrate the birth. Yesterday, when asked by a friend if he and she were married, I drew a blank. (They're not, as it turns out, I learned later from my wife).

True confession: until a few minutes ago I hadn't given it any thought as to whether Barack's mother and father were married. If asked, I'd probably have said, "Hmmmm.... I don't know about that, actually". I could easily have added, "why should I care" and "what does that have to do with anything?"

True confession: until a few minutes ago I hadn't given it any thought as to whether Barack's mother and father were married. If asked, I'd probably have said, "Hmmmm.... I don't know about that, actually".

Then you slept through 2008 and 2009.

"Weak brew indeed, Steve. Is it some kind of litmus test as to whether a person knows or doesn't know whether an individual was born out of wedlock forty-some years ago? "

Dude, can you not read ? *Brown* brought it up in the interview, therefore it behooves him to know what the fuck he's talking about.

And I can see the birthers are here, right on schedule...welcome assholes.

It's too late to stop the Coakley train wreck. This "last minute revelation" won't save her, and it won't save the Healthcare Bill.

As the 41st Senator, Brown is going to put enough sand in the gears to stop this too-expensive healthcare bill from getting passed for good.

Thank God that there are enough people awake in Massachusetts (never thought I'd say that!) to stop this in its tracks. As well as the rest of the Obama Agenda.

Phone banking for the past week in Dorchester , albeit on a statewide network , reveals a strong Coakley support .

patrick: It's too late to stop the Coakley train wreck.

GOP PREDICTIONS OF 2009:

Obama is a muslim..

One world currency will replace the dollar

Obama will take your guns..

Obama will take your ammo

Religion will be banned

Sharia law will be instituted

Rev Wright will move into the White House

H1N1 will kill everyone

Black people will "take over"

FEMA internment camps..

...death panels...

GOP 2010: Any Suckers Left?

"in large part because it makes him seem like a nut"

That won't help! Brown's supporters vote for him BECAUSE he's a nut. This will boost his credentials!

Brown is a nasty piece of work, I do not know anyone in Mass. personally, but I feel that they are more intelligent than he thinks.

There is one very specific way that the dems screwed up HCR in relationship to Massachusetts-- they already have significant HCR, universal coverage as well as mandates, etc. As far as I can remember there was not any explicit language making any allowances or giving any credit to states that already have a universal health insurance system. (In fact, folks in Mass could argue that they should be able to opt-out because they already have it.) In other words, Mass folks fear that they will essentially be punished for being ahead of the curve.

Tuesday is going to be a squeaker for sure.

Thank God that there are enough people awake in Massachusetts (never thought I'd say that!) to stop this in its tracks. As well as the rest of the Obama Agenda.

Um, you mean the Obama agenda that people VOTED FOR? You know, like the health care reform that he promised in every speech he gave??!??? Give me a break.

Obama's biggest problem is that he had to try and fix the fucking ridiculous shambles that the GOP left the country in-- and the GOP likes to pretend that Obama actually wanted to spend money on bailouts, etc.

As the 41st Senator, Brown is going to put enough sand in the gears to stop this too-expensive healthcare bill from getting passed for good.

Is this the same Patrick that was shilling for Hillary all last year? Figures.

She didn't know who Schilling is, was, uh, whatever?
You mean the bestest, winningest, pitchingest, pitcherest EVAH! The one who single-handedly got the Red Sox their first World Series in almost 90 years? Who's bloody sock should hang in Independence Hall FOREVAH!!!?
She didn't know who HE is, was, uh, whatever?
Maybe she had more important things to do, unlike myself, and other sports nuts.
BTW - Go Yankees!!!

Ooops!
Should read, "Whose bloody sock..." But, who's counting...
Who is?
Steve is?
He is?
He is!
Who's he?
Later, Steve...

Now that I looked at the Michelle Obama transcript posted above by Bilby, I really AM confused about whether Barack was born to a single mother. She says: "Barack saw his mother, who was very young and very single when she had him, and he saw her work hard to complete her education and try to raise he (sic) and his sister."

She goes on to say: "He saw his grandmother .... rise from being the secretary at a bank to being a senior level executive. This woman in her eighties, a ground breaker in her own right. But he also saw her hit that proverbial glass ceiling that even with her abilities and her hard work there was only so far that she'd be able to go."

I always thought becoming a senior level executive was a pretty good gig, if that's what one wants to do, so maybe Michelle is confused about more than whether or not her husband was born to married parents.

Then, of course, there's the centerfold Brown posed for in Cosmo. I have a feeling this clown will fizzle out the more people learn about him.

It should be pretty obvious that Scott Brown is a whacko. He proudly endorses torture.

The larger issue is why Coakley is locked in a close race against a guy who posed naked for a magazine "spread". I'd have thought that would end just about anybody's political career.

Terry Ott - you don't care for our President, do you! To be obsessed with stories that would render the sitting president's legitimacy invalid is to abandon the present where you or your loved ones may, just may, need health care coverage for needed medical procedures. If you are filthy rich, this is not a concern to you. If you insist on rummaging for conspiracy nuggets, ask Brown what he has done for his employees lately! -Kevo

The important thing is to get this information out to Democratic voters in MA. The problem isn't teabaggers who will turn out, it's Democrats who will be too apathetic to vote in an off-year election. For God's sake, Bay staters, call your friends, e-mail your friends, send this article around, get the word out!

Yep. This is pretty damning video. I doubt if any progressive is going to vote for him. Yawn.

Estelle,

No I didn't sleep through '08-'09. I watched the whole birth cert brouhaha with a combination of amusement and amazement. I did see a State of Hawaii birth record showing parentage and nationalities, first on Media Matters as I recall. Didn't have any notation about marital status, but I now have seen references to a marriage in early 1961 before Barack was born. But I truly "didn't know about that". So where does that put me, other than not giving a poop until this morning?

Let me say what caused me to post here. Steve opined that Brown, by saying he "didn't know about that" in reference to whether Barack's parents were married at the time, indicates that's a significant "find". I simply contend that it's not, inasmuch as "who cares?" (a) whether they were married then, and (b) about what happened decades ago. Is there any evidence that this was important one way or the other to Scott Brown? I wasn't for sure about it, because to me it matters not one iota ... and it may not have mattered to Scott Brown.

Then, on top of that I now see that Michelle (according to the transcript, anyway, from around the same time as Brown's comment) said Barack's mother was "very single" when she had him.

95% of us, I would guess, have moved well beyond the "birther" soap opera, and 90% of us (guesstimate) never thought it was important in the first place. So, I am mystified as to why Steve tries in a rather circuitous way to drag it back in. He's attributing something to Scott Brown that's "a bridge too far" and he appears to me to be grasping at straws. Why not make a substantive argument about Brown instead of a flimsy one? Why not, for that matter, question why Michelle made her "very single" comment? Because both Brown's offhand comment and Michelle's (I asssume) prepared marks in her speech are innocuous.

For the record, I am in favor of a radically different approach to health care reform ... much more far reaching than what's on the table. I think the administration and its Congressional allies have bungled this thing, and used the wrong process to arrive at the solution. Put me in the camp of "rip it up and do it properly" using a process that the general public will come to see as "our very best effort". I'm a Medicare person now, but my views on health care are rooted in the health care and insurance problems several of my friends have and of my granddaughter who IS a single mother of my wonderful great grandson.

I was in the press pen at the event in question and worked on that transcript with my partner at Show Me Progress, Michael Bersin, and I went back and played the entire section in question and it is obvious, in context, that she is talking about his mother raising her children as a single mother, not to her marital status at the time of Mr. Obama's birth. Michael and I have been in contact this morning and will have a post setting the record straight shortly, and we will embed the audio in question.

Thanks,

Blue Girl

[Not all of the comments that have been removed were offensive or the rantings of crazy people. They were accidentally swept up in deleting crazed rantings and spam from various threads en masse.]

In the 2004 paperback edition of DREAMS FROM MY FATHER, President Obama writes on p. 22, paragraph 2, "...In fact, how and when the marriaged occurred remains a bit murky, a bill of particulars that I've never quite had the courage to explore. There's no record of a real wedding, a cake, a ring, agiving away of the bride. No families were in attendance;"

Perhaps that is how Scott Brown got the idea that Barak Obama's parents weren't legally married.

In conversation "I don't know about that" is often used to signal doubt regarding a statement. This is especially so when delivered with a snigger, as in the Brown clip.

Another example: "Terry Ott understands the issues at hand." "Huh, I don't know about that."

Moderator,
I take it that you removed the posting including portions of a transcript here? Is that why I can't figure out what some of these other posters are referring to?

[Sadly, yes. Many apologies.]

those of us who have already been thrown under the bus are watching the slingfest with amusement and sadness at the way things never change, left or right. No accountability from anyone!

the best Corporate reps. that money can buy, D or R!!

Steve, I hate to say it, but this post epitomizes the incompetence of the Coakley campaign.

First, Obama defended Palin during the campaign by pointing out that his own mother, like Bristol, was pregnant and unmarried. Yes, his parents married by the time of his birth but to many people that's not a big dinstinction. Plus, you have the statements above from Michelle and "Dreams." It's a trivial issue which is going nowhere, especially on a holiday weekend.

Second, if the story did gain traction in the MSM, it would only draw attention to Obama's mother's unmarried/pregnant status. Do you really think the networks would focus on the married-at-birth technicality, and disregard the source of Brown's apparent uncertainty, especially in view of the "Dreams"/Michelle statements.

Third, nobody associates the out-of-wedlock issue with the birthers. To the contrary, it's more closely tied to the Obama mythology, his rise from humble origins, conceived and raised by a single mother.

Stay away from this. Assuming her candidacy can be saved, this won't be part of it. It looks particularly bad in the context of her participation in the Amirault witchhunt and the toddler curling iron rape case. She needs much bigger ammo to counteract those liabilities.

As for the Senate race, this clip has the potential to be damaging to Brown, in large part because it makes him seem like a nut.

Brown, with this kind of wingnut background, is able to give Coakley a run for her money in the most liberal state. Suggests that people are really pissed off at Democrats and Obama for the little they achieved so far and the price they paid to achieve what little they did. I can't believe that they allowed banks to grow bigger and bailed even the most reckless of the big banks without extracting any concessions or regulatory reform as a precondition to propping up those failures. The way Obama played with banks tells you all you need to know about his principles and his priorities. No wonder people are pissed off and, at least momentarily, considering voting a nut job.

As someone who has lived in MA for about 12 years now, I'm pretty sure that the main reason that Brown seems to be ahead is that his Western MA supporters -- as well as the conservatives in Greater Boston, et al -- see a chance to take a senate seat, and they are pulling out all stops to win. Some of the dumbest ads I've ever seen are popping up about four times a day on practically all the major stations. Coakley probably thought that she had this in the bag, due to our historical voting patterns, but she just isn't that inspiring. (Hell, if healthcare wasn't being voted on this year . . . and if Brown wasn't the candidate . . . I'd be voting against her on principle. And I still hate voting against someone rather than for someone.)
I think she has so far come across as entitled, rather than fired up, with few new ideas, so in that respect alone, Brown should be winning. And this "last minute relevation" about Brown's character -- I say this b/c nothing from his campaign so far would have implied anything less vile -- won't really be swaying anyone.
-- gphatty, resigned to voting for a mediocre candidate yet again

Anyone who claims that Brown was just innocently saying he didn't know about Obama's parents' marital status either hasn't watched the clip or is being deliberately obtuse.

When you combine the dialog 'well, I don't know about that' with the line delivery, the way he SAID it, what he actually and obviously meant was "I don't believe it."

This is what is so thoroughly unpleasant about the anti-Obama crowd. They just obsess on this stuff, which has entirely no impact on his legal ability to serve or on his qualifications to serve, and also does not except among the small-minded reflect badly on Obama himself, who obviously had no choice or input into how he was born, or where, or to whom.

This is just bashing an opponent's DEAD MOTHER, and doing it with lies and innuendo, for no reason other than pure mean-spiritedness.

Born and brought up in MA, lived there for the first 57 years of my life.

What is there about MA dems that peter principals their nominees like that?

I mean, three of the worst campaigns in recent history:
Dukakis vs GHW Bush in 1988
Karry vs GWB in 2004
And now Coakley against this hideous non-entity this year.

The only good thing is its not a full six-year term, just the uncompleted three of Ted's. Whoever wins has to run again in 2012. If its Brown, and if he reverts to type, he'll be out on his ass.

Steve,

I have found the progressive bloggers are going slightly nuts about Brown v. Coakley. Trying to tie the Brown statement with the birthers is a cheap shot and makes no chronological sense.

I do not believe were I in MA I could vote for Coakley. I was shocked by the rabid 1980's child molestation hysteria and can not forgive anybody who pandered to the mob. I also believe that district attorneys are given too much autonomous power and too many including Coakley abuse their authority.

I have no idea whether Obama is technically a bastard and I really don't care. I have relatives who were born on the wrong side of the blanket and it only comes up as a source of amusement.

Steve, you should not stoop to this level.

For the record, I am in favor of a radically different approach to health care reform ... much more far reaching than what's on the table. I think the administration and its Congressional allies have bungled this thing, and used the wrong process to arrive at the solution. Put me in the camp of "rip it up and do it properly" using a process that the general public will come to see as "our very best effort". I'm a Medicare person now, but my views on health care are rooted in the health care and insurance problems several of my friends have and of my granddaughter who IS a single mother of my wonderful great grandson.
Posted by: Terry Ott

terry,

progressives pride themselves on being reality based as opposed to republicans who tend to disregard facts that run against their world view. while hcr may be the epitome of the old saying about sausage-making, where the hell do you think the democrats were going to come up with sufficient votes for a more robust plan? thin air? while you and i and most people who read and comment on this blog would like at minimum a strong public option if not a single payer plan, it wasn't going to happen especially with an obstructionist republican party. you can be angry at obama, pelosi and reid, but that's reality.

And what difference would it make if they were not married, in terms of his qualifications or ability.

This is just another example of nasty minded gutter IQ level republicanism.

And what difference would it make if they were not married, in terms of his qualifications or ability.

This is just another example of nasty minded gutter IQ level republicanism.

"The problem with paying his employees as independent contractors is more than whether he provides health insurance. It is illegal to misclassify employees in order to avoid having to pay payroll taxes for them. It has been an issue for years and Mass. has some of the most defined laws in the country about who is an employee and who is a contractor. Someone with more legal knowledge than I have should really look into it."
Posted by: atlliberal

This is a big problem and should definitely looked into. atlliberal is correct: there are very strong criteria on who is considered an employee and who is a contractor. A major factor is the independence (work schedule, supervision) of the person. If Brown's people can come and go and do the work on their own, etc. then fine. But I sort of doubt this is the case on a political campaign. By treating these people as independent contractors the campaign saves a lot of money in payroll taxes (7.65% matching FICA, state unemployment and whatever other state payroll taxes MA has). These "contractors" will be liable for paying self employment tax, ie FICA times 2, or 15.3% of their pay, rather than just 7.65% that they would as an employee (since the employer kicks in the matching).

You don't have to be a birther to undertand that a person cannot legally marry another person if one of those two persons is already married.

Technically, Barack Obama, Sr., was married to another woman in Kenya with whom he already had children when he "married" Stanley Ann Dunham.

The second marriage while still married to his Kenyan wife would make Barack Obama, Sr., a bigamist. Certainly, the President's mother may have been kept in the dark about Obama, Sr,. already being married and it is not her or her son's fault that Obama, Sr., was a cad. Still, Obama, Sr., and Dunham could not have been married legally if he was already legally married to someone else.

Soylent Green: Assuming what you said is true about Obama's father, so what? That has nothing to do with Obama and his ability to be a President. We may not all approve of all his decisions as a President, but that doesn't mean we go down the path of insulting an individual's loved ones (parents and family). Attacks on a public figure's family should only be restricted to the extent the family members engage in politics (such as criticizing the first lady's speech on the campaign trail), but anything beyond that should be seen for what it is -- cheap shots from imbeciles who can't engage their political opponents on matters of policy.

Hey, Mudwall Jackson --- I wasn't really intending to get into a discussion of health care policy. I spouted off about Steve's "weak brew". He thinks an 2008 offhand comment on something interjected by a questioner (that Brown had no reason to know about) is potentially significant and/or material, and I think that's just silly and said so.

Apparently Steve is an icon that should not be critiqued, because the comments got pretty strange real quick, as if I were committing a blog site sin. I got tossed into the "birther bin" and someone else said I must not be in favor of health care reform. Pretty amazing deductions.

Others (more on point) offer up opinions about the meaning of "I don't know about that". Perhaps Brown should have nuanced, like this:

"If you'll permit me to react to the comment interjected into what I was saying a few moments ago... the Obamas themselves seem to be in doubt about the marital status of his parents, so certainly I wouldn't know one way of the other. You did bring it up, so does that mean YOU think it matters?"

Can we not just stipulate that this is a silly snit fit and drop whole thing? Hey, I've got 2.5 hours of airport down time tonight, but surely others have things they could be doing.

But let me get back to your comment. It's a valid thing for you to say you'd rather have a crappy health care program for Americans than no health care program changes. I am a retired business owner, not a public policy expert. But when the job of constructing the template for our national policy was handed to Congress at the point it was, I was pretty sure the whole thing would go haywire.

I've guided many organizations re: how to go about making critical and contentious changes in strategy and tactics, and have managed those kinds of projects for clients. The PROCESS is the most important thing. This HCR design process stunk. I have written my process design and management (and communication) suggestions for others, elsewhere. I'm worn out on it. But the very worst way to begin was to throw the general topic into that pit of special-interest sponsored vipers we call Congress as the start point. That was disastrous. "We" (and I speak for the people here) have very little faith in what Congress will do when left unsupervised. To have the HCR template, and the resulting legislative language begin and end with Congress is like sending a batter up to the plate with 2 strikes against him.

Obama was born on August 4th
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama

His parents were married on February 2nd.

YOU do the math.

He was conceived out of wedlock and his parents married before he was born.

XCowboy2: "He was conceived out of wedlock and his parents married before he was born."

You're describing Track Palin, right?

To Marnie, who says: "And what difference would it make if they were not married, in terms of his qualifications or ability. This is just another example of nasty minded gutter IQ level republicanism", I say it makes NO difference and never did... and one to my knowledge believes otherwise.

Irony.

Scott Brown was not talking about whether or not Barack's mother and dad were married in the interview on the now-defunct CN8 Network. The interviewer interrupted him mid-sentence with the words "And married". As if Scott Brown or Terry Ott or anyone else should or would care about that 45 years later. So now it's an example of "nasty minded gutter IQ level republicanism" that we are talking about that?

I doubt you are referring to either the cable TV interviewer who brought it up, or to Steve who posted it, or to Blue Mass who dug it out of the dustbin of inconsequential media tapes. Who is it then which nasty person is responsible for this being a (so-called) matter of interest?