In response to the overwhelming flood of Catholics immigrating into this country in the 1840’s emerged an anti-Irish-and anti-Catholic political party known as the Know-Nothing Party.

The Know-Nothings were named not for their ignorance but for their response when questioned about this growing party, they responded by saying “I know nothing.”

It was a party formed by politicians upset about their own parties’ views. Very much like today’s Tea Party.
One of its founders was New York Congressman Tom Whitney. He personally introduced legislation that was Anti-Catholic. His bill ultimately failed. The Know-Nothings were not just after the Irish and Catholics but had them at the top of their list of hatred.

In 1798 Congress passed the ‘Alien and Sedition Acts’ which made it a Federal crime to take part in any type of “false, scandalous, and malicious writing” about the federal government and authorized the President to deport any immigrant he deemed dangerous. This was the first law that dealt with the fear of the Irish-Catholic.

In 1843 a Know-Nothing candidate openly stated that “most of the Irish are as ignorant as children seven years old.” He also asked “who is it that commits most of the robberies, and thefts and murders in this city and country?” A different speaker stated that “these Irish bog-trotters must be sent back to their native obscurity.”

It wasn’t until the civil war that a lot of the hatred for the Irish-Catholics took a back seat to the hatred for free black slaves, and that the Irish helped fight in that war.

Now look at this Presidential election, does anything seem familiar? You can take out the words Irish and Catholic and replace them with Mexican and Muslim and we’re back in the 1800’s.

Many politicians over the years have won elections by scaring the American public.

It seems that we can always hate or fear someone or some ideology. We can go back to the Salem witch trials, with all the fears of sorcery and deaths.

We can look at the original native people of this land, the Indians. What we put those poor people through. We killed them, moved them, and took over their sacred land.

How about the Jews, African-Americans, Italians, Chinese, and the Japanese? They were all hated by politicians who benefitted from the fear they caused.

And what about the hippies? All they wanted to spread was peace and love. They were labeled un- American. Maybe they were un- American. As Americans we do love to fight, it looks like Trump is just taking a page out of our history to get elected this election. Can you blame him? This history of hatred has worked for a lot of Politicians in the past.

We as a society need to show Trump that this type of politics does not work anymore. And there is only one way to show him: at the ballot box.

Good, honest Americans must not fall for Trump’s Know-Nothing Politics.

This Presidential election pretty much comes down to about 7 states. The other 43 states are already decided. NBC polls indicate that Hillary Clinton has 256 electoral votes and Donald Trump has 191. To win the election a candidate needs to secure 270 electoral votes.

States up for grabs are Florida with 29 electoral votes, Colorado 9, North Carolina 15, Ohio 18, Pennsylvania 20, Virginia 13, and Wisconsin 10.

Since Hillary’s selection of Virginia’s U.S. Senator and former Governor Tim Kaine as her Vice Presidential running mate, her lead in the polls in Virginia has grown by over 5 points.

Florida is the largest swing state with their 29 electoral votes. Depending on what pollster you look at, Hillary is leading from between 1 to 6 percent. When she announced Tim Kaine as her running mate at a Florida rally, Hillary literally had Kaine speak in Spanish, the language of the largest growing and left moving voting block in the state.

With Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio not supporting Donald in this very important state, it is very hard to see Trump pulling out a win.

Hillary is also leading in the polls in several other states. In Colorado she leads by 9 points, in Pennsylvania by 11 and she is breaking even with Donald Trump in Ohio.

This past week Trump took out millions of dollars in of ads in three key states, Florida, Ohio and North Carolina, attacking Clinton on the paid speeches she gave to Wall street people while she was out of public office. He’s trying to imply that she can be bought by Wall Street. Yet, he hasn’t even shown his own tax returns to date.

Since the Democratic Convention, white women with college degrees have been moving to Clinton. That is very important. In the 2012 election, women made up the majority of voters 53 to 47. That, coupled with Hillary’s lead of 83-12 in non-white voters this election, spells trouble for Donald Trump.

Nationwide Hillary is leading in the polls 47-38. With under age 45 voters she’s leading 65-32. Trump is leading among white men by 5 points but Hillary is leading among women by 23 points. When you look at all the numbers, Trump only leads Hillary in the white men vote. That is something Hillary can live with.

When you add up all the polls and numbers there is not a chance that Trump is going to win this election. Hillary is leading in every demographic except white men. Unless this election is held under 1918 rules, Hillary Clinton will make history as the first Female President of the United States.

Baker nominated Superior Court Justices Kimberly Budd, Frank Gaziano and David Lowy to the state’s highest court.

Justice Robert Cordy announced that he will be retiring in August, and Justices Fernande R. V. Duffly and Francis X. Spina will be retiring in the fall. That left Baker in the position to fill those upcoming vacancies.

Baker surprised most with his nominations. Court watchers expected Baker to nominate candidates with some type of appellate experience. All
three Judges are from the Superior Courts and never held a position in any type of appellate review.

They are respected and capable Judges with a lot of peer support across the commonwealth, but they lack the appellate experience that is needed to make those crucial decisions on the state’s highest bench.

Not one of them has ever been in the position to turn over other judge’s decisions. How will they feel when one of their former colleagues?
case comes across their bench? Will they make the right decision or be affected by their friendships?

They also have never worked with another Judge on a panel. How well will they do working with other Justices? How will they feel having to argue their opinions with other Judges? Usually what t they said in the courtroom went unopposed before. Will they be timid to speak their minds with their senior Justices? How will they feel to have to defend their decisions with the other Justices? These are questions that should not be reserved for such an important position. They are usually reserved for Justices on the Appeals Court.

The Governor’s Council votes on all SJC candidates before they are given the job. They’re the ones that need to ask and ponder these very important questions. There are other questions that need to be asked too.

Is Judge Lowy being given special treatment because he and Baker both worked together under former Governor William Weld in the early 90’s?

What about Judge Budd’s Father Wayne Budd? He also worked under Weld and succeeded him as the U. S. Attorney for Massachusetts. After he left public office, Wayne Budd got involved into politics. He was Campaign Manager for former Mass. Attorney General Tom Reilly.

It begs the question: Do you have to be politically connected to be considered for nomination to the Mass. SJC? It seems that at least two of these picks fall under the Weld umbrella of politics. What kind of message is Baker sending to the other Judges in this state? That you need to be politically connected to get a promotion in this state?

These posts are very important. SJC Justices make new law with their decisions. Instead of Baker Nominating Judges with different backgrounds and bringing different opinions to the bench, he went the partisan way. He made sure that there are Justices on that bench that supported his views and his republican political agenda. He’s making sure there is not three branches of government in this state, but, only two.

We are only left with the hope that the Governor’s council does their job. They need to put politics aside and do what is right for the citizens of the Commonwealth. They need to send a message to the Governor that partisan politics will not play a role on the state’s highest court.

With the uncertainty of the United States Supreme Court, it has never been this important to have a bipartisan SJC. Can You imagine this state turning into Texas or another state in the south? Where they don’t believe in a separation between church and state.

Baker has to have aspirations of higher office. To play to his republican base in the south he needs to be more conservative to prove to them he is their man for the next Presidential election.

He has to see that former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney was hurt in his support by the republican south because of his Massachusetts liberal ways. Baker won’t make the same mistake. Massachusetts needs to get ready to be used as a political football over the next few years.

It already started though, on June 14, 2016 when Baker made his nominations to the SJC.

It seems that this election year people are so involved and so “knowledgeable” about the primary process and the general election. But it seems that the term “Super delegates” is akin to a new term or saying that democrats never heard before but in reality they were put in place during the Kennedy – Carter primary in 1982 that allowed democratic leadership to have a “guiding hand” hand during the selection process. So many delegates from all 50 states, the bigger the state the more delegates. In my humble opinion a rigged system. No wonder why Bernie is so mad.

As of now Hillary Clinton has 2,811 delegates including the all-important Super delegates of 591. Bernie Sanders has a total of 1,879 delegates including 48 Super delegates. Even if Sanders received all of the Super delegates Clinton would still be the democratic nominee.75 delegates have not been allocated yet which won’t make a difference for either candidate. So for Clinton her many years in the political world has helped her enormously. Even though Sanders has been involved in politics just as long as Clinton he refused to network the system like Clinton did and still does.

That is why he will never be called Mr. President.