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A man who turned up at the Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates urgent-care offices in Braintree this afternoon complaining of a headache and other Ebola-like systems has been quarantined as a precaution, according to the Braintree Fire Department. Firefighter Joe Zanca said the man was isolated “based on his travel history.” Zanca said the patient showed up at the Grossman Drive facility shortly after 1:30 p.m. The building was evacuated and the patient was isolated at the scene.

Peaceniks in leafy, lefty Brookline are trying to ban the Pledge of Allegiance from town schools, insisting the iconic verse has anti-patriotic overtones...

James Taranto profiles Sean Bielat, the congressional candidate in Massachusetts who is seeking to defeat Barney Frank in November's election: A native of Rochester, N.Y., Mr. Bielat caught the "political bug" as a teenager, when he did a stint as a House page. After earning a master's in public policy from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, he went to work as a consultant at McKinsey & Co. and an executive for iRobot Corp., a defense contractor based in Bedford, Mass. He's also a new father; his wife gave birth to their son, Theodore, over the summer... Can he win? In...

Sean Bielat, the Republican candidate for Congress in Massachusetts' 4th District, has had just one conversation with his Democratic opponent, Rep. Barney Frank. It was in August, at a parade in New Bedford. "I went up to introduce myself and said, 'Nice to meet you,'" Bielat recalls. "He said, 'I wish I could say the same, but you've made this personal. You've been attacking me.' Then he turned and walked away." Bielat remembers thinking that was a little odd, since at that very moment Frank's Web site featured plenty of attacks on Bielat. But the brief encounter set the tone...

US Representative Barney Frank, facing his most serious opponent in more than two decades, wooed the people of Taunton and the Fourth Congressional District yesterday with a rally at Taunton High School that included promise of a better future — and a visit from Bill Clinton. After more than an hour’s wait, time that was filled with songs by the high school choir and jazz band, the estimated 2,500 in attendance welcomed the former president with a boisterous round of applause, as the sounds of Fleetwood Mac boomed in the background: “Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow.’’ “I’m glad to be...

Here’s how I know that Barney Frank’s re-election race is tighter than he’d like. Yesterday I asked him some questions. I was bracing to get hammered by his reply. This time, though, he didn’t tell me I was asking something dumb. He didn’t get mad. He didn’t lecture me on what I should be asking instead. What’s up? My guess: Barney’s on good behavior because the country’s angry. Lots of voters in his typically adoring 4th District are angry too...

Sean Harrington, a senior at Arlington High School, faced the School Committee on Tuesday with frustrated tears in his eyes. He had just come tantalizingly close to realizing his dream: he wanted every student in the Arlington schools to have the chance to recite the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of each school day. But in spite of Harrington’s impassioned speech citing mothers who lost children in Iraq and aging Baby Boomers left mentally shattered after Viet Nam, the committee vote was tied 3 - 3, and the measure failed. School Committee members Joseph Curran, Cindy Starks and Chairman...

SOUTH YARMOUTH — Some students are calling for the firing of two Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School teachers who held an anti-war sign during a school assembly Friday, reports the Cape Cod Times. History teacher Marybeth Verani and English teacher Adeline Koscher made their silent protest during the part of the assembly in which school officials recognized graduating seniors who are entering the military.

This is a fascinating interview of Martha Coakley this morning on a local TV station, focusing mostly on health care. Note how Martha Coakley dismisses the concerns that voters have about health care by claiming the voters are too “unfocused,” don’t really understand this issues involved, etc. In particular, watch her adamant response to the question about the fact that 61 percent of voters in the Suffolk poll don’t think we can afford government-run health care. “Are they wrong?” the interviewer asks. “They ARE wrong,” Coakley practically shouts...

Massachusetts voters have to ask themselves a serious question before they head to the polls next week: Are they content with the current state of affairs in Washington? Are they content with a sweeping health care bill, now being negotiated behind closed doors by principals from only one political party? (So much for a new era of bipartisanship promised by our president.)...

Showing a 15-point lead for Democrat Martha Coakley, a Globie poll that had become the worst-kept secret in town was finally published in today’s paper. Once again, UNH was its partner. While other surveys showing a horse race with Republican Scott Brown could prove optimistic, we know The Globies can’t be trusted and are up to their usual tricks...

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee seems concerned about the January 19 special Senate eleciton in Massahusetts -- or at least they want donors to think so. From an email today from DSCC executive director J.B. Poersch: America's future hangs on getting Martha Coakley elected to Ted Kennedy's seat on Jan. 19...American Future Fund, the guys who brought you the Swift Boat attacks against decorated war veteran John Kerry, are up with a $400,000 buy, smearing Coakley. She's being outspent, and a new poll shows that the right wing money is doing the trick. Republican Scott Brown is within striking distance.

It looks like the fix is in on national health-care reform - and it all may unfold on Beacon Hill. At a business forum in Boston Friday, interim Sen. Paul Kirk predicted that Congress would pass a health-care reform bill this month. “We want to get this resolved before President Obama’s State of the Union address in early to mid-February,” Kirk told reporters...

Republicans woke up this morning with a spring in their step: Sens. Byron Dorgan and Chris Dodd both said they wouldn't run for another term...

Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown has pulled within a 10 percentage point lead in the special election in Massachusetts to replace the late pro-abortion Sen. Ted Kennedy. The race could have a dramatic effect if brown pulls out the upset because it could impact the health care debate. Brown faces pro-abortion Democrat Martha Coakley who already has the endorsement of Emily's List, a top pro-abortion organization. But Brown is getting backing from those who oppose the health care bill and want him to be elected to become the 41st vote against it -- supporting the Republican filibuster that has been...

Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown says a Nigerian man accused of trying to blow up a U.S. airliner should be treated as an enemy combatant, transferred to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and interrogated by any legal means...

Martha Coakley’s plan to coast into the general election without a campaign (or issues!) has effectively been thwarted by a surprisingly feisty, scrappy Scott Brown. While clueless Beltway GOP officials, pundits and other insiders continue to write off or ignore the race, it is clearly heating up here at home...

GOP U.S. Senate candidate Scott Brown has been all but abandoned by the same national Republican committees that pumped hundreds of thousands in campaign cash to former governors Mitt Romney and William Weld

Can Scott Brown actually win this thing? On paper, the special US Senate election next month should be another walkover for the Democrats. Yet the race for the seat of the late Edward M. Kennedy will play out not on paper, but in a noxious political environment, providing a rare glint of hope for the state’s undermanned Republicans. Brown, a Republican state senator from Wrentham, is considered a long shot, but he is the GOP’s most attractive Senate candidate since Mitt Romney lost to Kennedy 15 years ago. His positions on most issues are diametrically opposed to those of the...

Posted at 2:35 PM, Pacific The May 8, 2000 article from U.S. News & World report reproduced below begins by stating that John Kerry conducted clandestine forays into Cambodia during the Vietnam War to deliver weapons to anticommunist forces. Because that statement isn't a direct quote of Kerry, I contacted the reporter, Kevin Whitelaw, this afternoon. Whitelaw still works at U.S. News & World report where he covers foreign affairs and intelligence matters. Hugh: "Did John Kerry tell you that he ran guns into Cambodia?" Kevin Whitelaw: "That's exactly what he told me." Mr. Whitelaw declined my invitation to appear...