Massachusetts: John Kerry

This blog has been picking up some new readers, perhaps because the city election year is starting, perhaps in part as a result of my efforts to build up my Facebook network.  (If you're not my FB friend yet, please friend me, and encourage anyone else interested in politics to do so as well!)

As is true for many blogs, this one has a tendency to repeat certain assumptions or references without explanation. For example, for a month now this blog has been goading John Kerry aide Ayanna Pressley to run for Boston City Council. You might suspect that I have some motive for this -- that I think she'd be a terrific councilor, or that she's a friend of mine, or that I have some personal stake in her candidacy.

As the incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, U.S. Sen. John Kerry announced the committee's staff for the 111th Congress on Thursday.

David McKean, who has worked as Kerry's chief of staff since 1999, will become staff director of the committee. Kerry also named Doug Frantz, a former investigative journalist for the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times, as the committee's chief investigator.

U.S. Sen. John Kerry announced on Wednesday that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, of which he is the incoming chair, will hold confirmation hearings for U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton to become secretary of state next Tuesday, Jan. 13.

Kerry, a Boston Democrat, also announced that the committee will hold a confirmation hearing for Susan Rice to become United Nations ambassador on Thursday, Jan. 15.

Friday's implementation of the successful ballot initiative to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana has everyone talking. The government gave its recommendations  and some are looking to increase penalties for smoking in public.