massachusetts

America Has Two Black Senators For the First Time Ever

Robert Kessler · 01/30/13 01:24PM

This morning, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick announced he would appoint William "Mo" Cowan as interim senator to fill newly appointed Secretary of State John Kerry's seat until a special election. Cowan was Gov. Patrick's chief of staff from January 2011 to November 2012; before that he served as Patrick's chief legal counsel.

Robert Kessler · 01/04/13 10:30AM

Barney Frank, who literally retired from the House of Representatives yesterday, wants to be a Senator now.

Here's Video of Mitt Romney Saying "It's Not Right" That Gay People Are Having Children

John Cook · 10/29/12 10:11AM

Last week Murray Waas reported in the Boston Globe that as governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney refused to change the state's birth certificate to acknowledge legal births to same-sex parents. Gay couples with children were to cross out "mother" or "father" on the forms and write themselves in, leaving their children's official documents permanently altered. Romney later explained the thinking behind the decision this way: "Some gays are actually having children born to them. It's not right on paper. It's not right in fact." Here's the video.

Mitt Romney Has Not Gotten Any Less Awkward Since 1994

Jim Newell · 12/01/11 11:50AM

Any day when even a single second of new footage of Mitt Romney trying to interact with human beings hits YouTube is going to be a good day, and here we've got four whole uncut minutes of it! This is quite a score, comedy-wise.

Why Doesn't CBS News Want You to Know This Mayor Is Gay?

Brian Moylan · 11/14/11 04:58PM

Last night CBS News did a segment about Alex Morse, the newly-elected 22-year-old mayor of Holyoke, Massachusetts. It's not only newsworthy that Morse is the country's youngest mayor, but also newsworthy that he's one of only a handful of openly gay mayors. So, why did they gloss over the second fact?

To Occupy Harvard, You Need a Valid Harvard ID

Maureen O'Connor · 11/10/11 12:02PM

Updated. Three hundred protesters marched through Cambridge, Massachusetts last night. Their goal: Occupying Harvard Yard. Arriving at the edge of campus, the protesters found the University's gates locked and guarded by a phalanx of campus police. Boston's CBS affiliate reports:

Crazy Heckler Calls Elizabeth Warren 'Socialist Whore'

Jim Newell · 11/03/11 01:13PM

Just as Massachusetts Senate candidate and liberal deity Elizabeth Warren was getting into a meeting with volunteers in Brockton last night, a decidedly unfriendly heckler rose up and started hurling accusations — and what experts are calling a "gender-based epithet"!

Woman Needs to Chill Out About the Rogue Plastic Flamingos in Her Yard

Lauri Apple · 11/03/11 05:10AM

Every autumn for the past three years the well-intentioned senior boys and girls at Quincy High School in Quincy, Massachusetts have gone around sticking dozens of cheap plastic flamingos in people's yards along with signs asking for $20 donations. They call their activity "flocking." It's a harmless alternative to flash-robbing and other popular teen pastimes.

Scott Brown Is Apparently Bob Dole's Wife

Max Read · 10/12/11 10:55PM

"I was raised to believe that there are no limits to individual achievement and no excuses to justify indifference," reads a message on Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown's website. Weirdly, former North Carolina Senator Elizabeth Dole said the exact same thing in her Senate campaign announcement speech in 2002. Which leads us to wonder: Is Scott Brown Bob Dole's Wife?

Scott Brown Relieved That Elizabeth Warren Never Posed Naked

Jim Newell · 10/06/11 11:39AM

The presumed Scott Brown-Elizabeth Warren matchup for Senate in Massachusetts is off to a very serious issues-related start, with each one joking about the other's history (or lack thereof) of posing naked in magazines.

Don't Make Women's Bras 'Disappear' During Public Meetings

Lauri Apple · 09/29/11 05:00AM

Opening public meetings with a magic trick or two can help you engage with your audience and ease them into the seemingly endless boredom-torture to come—but use discretion! Tricks that involve disappearing coins are probably fine. Tricks that involve disappearing women's undergarments are probably... not fine?