David Uberti, Writer At Large
My latest for the Boston Globe:
WASHINGTON — The suicide of Internet activist Aaron Swartz is reverberating throughout Congress this week, with family members arriving on Capitol Hill to urge passage of legislation that would soften some Internet laws, and a House committee investigating whether prosecution of Swartz went too far.
Criticism of Swartz’s prosecution has led the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to open an inquiry about the case. The panel is seeking answers from the Department of Justice regarding the severity of Swartz’s proposed punishment, and whether his activism affected his prosecution. Justice officials could provide a private briefing for committee members as soon as next week, House aides said.
The committee’s chairman, Darrell Issa, called the prosecution “regrettable” at a memorial service for Swartz at the Cannon House Office Building that was designed to highlight the case and create momentum for passage of the legislation. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts also attended the service, but did not speak, according to a participant.
“The crime and the punishment did not fit,” Issa said.
Read the full story here.
WASHINGTON — Senator John Kerry, in a long and occasionally emotional farewell speech in the chamber where he represented Massachusetts for 28 years, praised the Senate’s history of pragmatic compromise while warning that political gridlock in Washington threatens America’s reputation abroad.
But the Bay State lawmaker expressed optimism during his 50-minute good-bye, urging his colleagues to heed the lessons he learned as a freshman legislator in 1985.
“I do not believe the Senate is broken — certainly not as an institution,” Kerry said. “There is nothing wrong with the Senate that can’t be fixed by what’s right about the Senate.”
Read the rest of the piece at BostonGlobe.com.
My latest for The Boston Globe:
WASHINGTON — Senator John F. Kerry used his experience and relationships in the Senate to help secure more Navy ships for coastal combat, boosting Massachusetts technology jobs. Senator Joe Lieberman, an independent, fought hard to protect Connecticut’s submarine-building franchise. Olympia J. Snowe, Maine’s moderate Republican, built a reputation ensuring Bath Iron Works continued hammering out destroyers.
But now this powerful trio of veteran New England senators is gone, sapping the region’s political clout. Snowe and Lieberman retired and, on Tuesday, Kerry won confirmation as secretary of state.
Gone is their combined 70 years of experience in the Senate, creating a challenge for the less-experienced New England senators and newcomers who must assume leadership roles in a clubby chamber where the key political currencies are seniority and personal relationships.
“This is the first time in a while the state of Massachusetts finds itself in this position [without senior senators],” said Stephen Ansolabehere, a professor of government at Harvard University. “We just don’t know how good the new Senate class is going to be at these negotiations.”
Read the rest of the piece at BostonGlobe.com.
My latest for The Boston Globe:
WASHINGTON — Despite its reputation as a state with strong gun-control laws, Massachusetts for more than a decade has not provided mental health records to an FBI database for gun background checks, the result of a 43-year-old state law prohibiting such sharing.
Massachusetts has submitted just one mental health record to the federal database since 1999 — apparently as a test — at the same time that the FBI has processed 1.6 million background checks of Bay State residents who seek to buy guns from federally licensed dealers. The situation has sparked concerns that firearms could fall into the hands of the mentally ill.
Governor Deval Patrick has twice tried unsuccessfully to get legislative approval for the sharing of mental health data. Both attempts failed to gain traction in the state Legislature amid opposition from gun-rights activists.
The governor renewed the effort earlier this month when he proposed universal background checks that include mental health information. Supporters said that momentum for revising the measure may have reached a tipping point in the wake of the shooting of 26 people in Newtown, Conn.
Read the rest of the piece at BostonGlobe.com.
The following is from a five-minute-long writing exercise in my magazine and feature writing class. We were asked to review some form of entertainment that we had recently consumed. Mine was Sunday’s - April 22 - episode of HBO’s Game of Thrones.
HBO’s latest episode of incestual sex and cold-blooded killing – Game of Thrones, for non-believers – reached a whole new level of weird Sunday. As if the frustration of watching a paranoid, 14-year-old king wasn’t enough, Joffrey forces two prostitutes to satisfy his increasingly violent fetishes. And it doesn’t end there. The same red-headed fire priestess who seduced Stannis Baratheon on his war map finally gives birth, handing viewers one of the series’ biggest surprises yet. Winter may be coming, but things in Westeros are only heating up.
