Markey made reference to the Koch brothers and Karl Rove spending undisclosed amounts of money before saying, “The constitution must be amended. The Dred Scott decision had to be repealed, we have to repeal Citizens United.”

BuzzFeed notes Markey has accepted more than $2.5 million from business, labor, and ideological PACs since 1989, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Critics are challenging Markey’s hypocrisy.

“Agree or disagree with federal campaign finance law, it’s ridiculous and offensive to compare it to the horror of slavery,” Brad Dayspring, communications director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told the Free Beacon. “Out-of-touch statements like these simply reinforce the fact that Ed Markey has been hibernating in Washington back rooms since Carlton Fisk was behind the plate for the Red Sox and disco ruled the world. If Ed Markey really believes this to be the modern equivalent to slavery, he’ll quickly return the millions that he’s raised from PACs over his career.”

Update: Video of Markey’s comments via BuzzFeed:

Markey has maintained his childhood home in Massachusetts throughout his 37 years in the House of Representatives, but the Globe found he spends much of his time at his Maryland home in an exclusive neighborhood, which is “triple the size.” Critics have called into question Markey’s allegiance to his “home” state:

Markey’s Malden water bills suggest he is there infrequently, paying only the monthly minimum for service. Mortgage documents on his two homes tell an ambiguous tale, with both homes listed at various points as his primary residences. House records show that he and his staff have spent less annually from his official budget on travel over the last four years than any of the state’s other House members, which could suggest he travels back to his district less often.

At the same time, longtime neighbors in Malden, and local politicians, say Markey is part of their community and is active in using his position to push local development and public works projects. The question has never become a big enough problem to prompt a strong electoral opponent, a further indication that it may not be viewed as a major concern to those in his district.

Cutter, who has been touted as a member of Obama’s boys’ club while pushing economic reform for working class women, stated gender identity was irrelevant on the campaign.

When you’re in the thick of it and you’re looking around the table, you’re not counting how many men or how many women are sitting around. That’s your team. And we had been together for many, many years. So it was a close-knit team that worked well together.

Cutter said she does not regret calling presidential candidate Mitt Romney a “felon.”

“I don’t regret saying it, it is the truth,” said Cutter.

The Massachusetts native also divulged that her favorite comfort food is cheese.

Labor announced a $408,403 National Emergency Grant increment for continued assistance to roughly 320 workers affected by the 2011 closure of Evergreen Solar Inc.

This latest block of aid brings the total funds awarded for the project to $738,179.

“The former workers of Evergreen Solar continue to face significant obstacles in finding good jobs in their region,” Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis said in a statement. “This funding will make it possible for these workers to receive training and reemployment services to help them find good jobs.”

Evergreen Solar received an estimated $31 million in state funding from the administration of Democratic Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.

Massachusetts taxpayers were left on the hook for nearly $10 million of that aid when the company went bankrupt and laid off roughly 800 employees.

The affected Evergreen workers are also receiving Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) benefits, according to the Labor Department press release.

The TAA program is administered by the Department of Labor and aids workers who lose their jobs or have hours or wages reduced due to foreign competition.

Aggressive competition from China has been blamed for the downfall of a number of domestic solar companies in recent years, including several that received hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants as part of President Barack Obama’s green energy initiative such as Solyndra.

The Labor Department approved Evergreen for TAA benefits in March 2011.

Meanwhile, the Boston Herald reported last year that former Evergreen CEO Richard Feldt was selling his five-bedroom, two-plus acre manse for $9.9 million.

That is almost $1.4 million more than the selling price of the company’s factory.

Governor Deval Patrick will announce Thursday the departure of nearly half his Cabinet as he begins his final two years in office, and the ­addition to the administration of Suffolk Sheriff Andrea Cabral as public safety secretary, according to people with direct knowledge of the shakeup.

Administration and Finance Secretary Jay Gonzalez, Health and Human Services Secretary JudyAnn Bigby, Public Safety and Security Secretary Mary Beth Heffernan, and Education Secretary Paul Reville are all leaving the administration, said people who knew of the staff changes. They requested anonymity to divulge details before the formal announcement.

The personnel changes are a result of an array of controversies surrounding Patrick’s top officials.

Public Safety and Security Secretary Mary Beth Heffernan ran into trouble for recommending Sheila Burgess to be the state’s highway safety director. Burgess, a longtime fundraiser for Democratic campaigns, was forced to resign after it became clear that she was given the $87,000-a-year position through patronage alone. Not only did the highway safety director have a driving record that included “seven accidents, four speeding violations, and two failures to stop,” but she also had no experience in public safety, transportation, or government administration.

Heffernan is taking the fall for Patrick, who excused himself from explaining the hiring by stating that all Burgess’ employment records were destroyed.

Health and Human Services Secretary JudyAnn Bigby came under fire for an evidence tampering scandal that occurred under her watch. According to the Boston Herald, email records show that Bigby was aware of a drug lab mishandling evidence in at least 90 cases for seven months and allowed it to continue without investigation.

Also included in the cabinet shakeup is Education Secretary Paul Reville, who survived controversy in 2009 when he got caught lobbying for the approval of a charter school, based solely on improving Patrick’s reputation on education policy. Reville warned in an email that a rejection would get Patrick “permanently labeled as hostile” to charter schools and “cripple us with a number of key, moderate allies.”

Government employees have had their way with the Patrick administration from the start. Since Patrick took office in 2007, the number of government workers making over $100,000 a year rose by 40 percent, and the government has managed to pay out $127 million to state employees for unused vacation time.

“It’s just not true,” Warren said of the charge. “The Boston Globe has looked at this; they’ve written about it.”

Warren wrote a U.S. Supreme Court brief for Travelers Insurance in 2009; in the case–Travelers v. Bailey–the company sought to achieve permanent immunity against any new asbestos-related claims through the establishment of a $500 million trust.

After Warren left the case, and as an extension of the legal work she did, Travelers was able to maintain its immunity and, in a subsequent case, avoid paying out of the $500 million trust, according to the Boston Globe.

The Washington Free Beacon reported on Warren’s work for Travelers Insurance in March:

In 2008, according to her financial disclosure records, Warren received $73,625 from Simpson, Thacher, & Bartlett LLP, the New York law firm representing the Hartford, Conn.-based Travelers Insurance. The following year, she received $94,772 in “non-employee comp” from Travelers, and in 2010 she was paid $43,938 in non-employee comp by the insurance company.  Travelers also paid her husband $1,000 in 2009, according to Warren’s financial disclosure records. [...]

In 2004, Travelers settled with several plaintiffs for $445 million, in exchange for an order from the bankruptcy court clarifying its 1986 decision that no new asbestos cases could be brought against Travelers. However, in 2008 the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that ruling and held that the bankruptcy court had no authority in 1986 to block all future lawsuits against Travelers.

Not until the 2009 Supreme Court case, which Warren helped win, did Travelers finally gain binding immunity against all new lawsuits related to its alleged conduct.

In effect, Warren helped end the “asbestos litigation crisis.”

“I’ve never been about anything but job creation. Is that extreme?” Tisei told the Free Beacon, mocking Democratic accusations that the national GOP has been taken over by extremists.

“I’ve owned my own business, a real estate business, for the last 5 years. During that time, every business and every family has helped me. But the federal government hasn’t,” Tisei said.

Tisei served in the Massachusetts legislature for 26 years beginning in 1984. He is quick to note he represented a state Senate district where only about 10 percent of voters are registered Republicans.

While Tierney has attempted to portray Tisei, 50, as the new recruit of the House Republicans’ “Young Guns”—a group of fiscal reform-minded Republicans led originally by Eric Cantor and Kevin McCarthy, and whose PAC is supporting Tisei with television ads—Tisei said that he will work across the aisle in Washington to achieve his legislative goals, all of which are focused on the economy.

“I agree with the national party on some of the issues that are really important, like preventing higher taxes, but not on some of the social issues,” Tisei said.

“I think people here [in Massachusetts] tend to be very libertarian on social issues. When Republicans put up candidates who espouse the views of the electorate, then they get elected,” Tisei said. “Scott Brown is the latest example of that.”

Tisei is often mentioned alongside Brown and fellow Republican congressional candidate Sean Bielat as representing a new wave in Massachusetts politics—one emphasizing fiscal responsibility while discarding longstanding GOP social positions used by Democrats to demonize Republicans in the press.

Tisei’s moderate image has earned him unusually fair coverage in the liberal Boston Globe, which, to his slight embarrassment, has prominently mentioned his sexuality.

According to Tisei, his policy views, like those of many conservatives, are rooted in a centrist Democratic tradition.

“There was always a wing of the Democratic Party in Massachusetts that was conservative. We had Ed King as governor from ’78 to ’82, and he was Ronald Reagan’s favorite Democratic governor. The legislature had a lot of conservative Democrats. Eventually the party in Massachusetts was big enough that there was an intraparty squabble. Conservatives felt they didn’t have a home in the party anymore,” Tisei said.

The success of Tisei, Brown, and Bielat suggests that the migration of small-government Democrats to the Republican Party, which occurred in the 1980s and 1990s in most parts of the country, has finally reached Massachusetts, according to political observers.

“When the Massachusetts Republican Party can’t break 40 percent in elections, the party starts to atrophy. Less money comes from the national GOP and less party money gets spread out to the districts. Republicans regularly don’t even put up candidates for U.S. House races in Massachusetts. But that is not necessarily a symptom of voter demographics anymore,” elections analyst Jay Cost told the Free Beacon in April.

“In the past few years, a lot of conservative Democrats don’t feel comfortable any more with the turn their party has taken. That’s why Scott Brown was able to beat Martha Coakley. A lot of people are realizing now that if you’re against higher taxes, more spending, and more people being added to the welfare rolls, then you have to consider the Republican Party,” Tisei said.

“Elizabeth Warren is a pretty stark choice compared to Scott Brown,” Tisei added as an example of the new party dynamics.

John Tierney, Tisei pointed out, is another example.

“John Tierney is ranked as the 20th most liberal congressman in the country. To put that in perspective, Charlie Rangel is ranked 25th,” Tisei said, referring to the Democratic New York congressman who once said that tax cuts are the modern version of racism.

Tierney is also in the midst of a scandal involving his wife’s role in an illegal gambling operation, which led to her tax fraud conviction in October 2010.

Now running for his ninth term in Congress, Tierney has consistently voted with Democratic House leadership since he first took office in 1997.

“He’s never shown any independence. I think at this point most people in this state are not looking for an ideologue. They’re looking for problem solvers,” Tisei said.

“A big issue in our race is the medical device excise tax in Obamacare,” Tisei said, noting that Massachusetts is home to more than 400 medical device companies and that even Elizabeth Warren has opposed the tax.

“You would think that a Massachusetts congressman would be leading the fight to repeal the tax, he’s been one of the biggest proponents for that tax,” Tisei said.

“Government’s role should be to help business. That’s how people in Massachusetts feel. That’s how I feel,” Tisei said.

According to Politico:

Bruce Percelay, a longtime Democratic donor and close friend of Sen. John Kerry, is making a rare trek across party lines to support Brown. Percelay plans to work for Kerry’s reelection in 2014 and has given tens of thousands of dollars to Reps. Ed Markey and Mike Capuano as well as the national Democratic Party. But earlier this year Percelay gave $3,250 to Brown.

“Elizabeth Warren is not someone who I can comfortably wrap my arms around,” he said. “Not everyone is willing to express it, but [Brown] is the perfect Massachusetts Republican. He’s socially moderate and fiscally conservative and not a strong ideologue. People are very comfortable with that.” 

Meanwhile, “Moving America Forward,” the 2012 Democratic National Platform, takes credit for the STOCK Act, which Brown “initially pushed” and which President Obama signed into law in April. According to the platform: ”Democrats led the fight to enact the STOCK Act to ban congressional insider trading” (p. 45).

Brown was not mentioned as the driving force behind the passage of the STOCK Act.

Brown currently leads his Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren by 26 points among independents, according to Public Policy Polling. He leads Warren overall by six points, 49 to 43 percent, according to a Kimball Political Consulting poll.

Democratic Boston mayor Thomas Menino still has not endorsed Warren, while Brown has received numerous Democratic endorsements, including that of former Boston mayor Ray Flynn.

“I do not think that taking away this man’s livelihood is the appropriate response to what occurred. We are in tough economic times. Mr. Reitzas has a young daughter, and I am concerned about how he would support his family if he lost his license. He seems like a regular guy who’s just trying to get by like everyone else. It is my hope that he will be allowed to continue with his job and get back to his life,” Brown wrote.

Since the Free Beacon first identified Reitzas Tuesday, the 36-year old owner of Vineyard Transport has been subjected to intense media coverage.

The Warren campaign attempted to distance itself from Reitzas, but the Free Beacon published a photo from mid-July, more than one month before the confrontation, showing Reitzas with his arm around Warren and her husband Bruce Mann.

Reitzas held a press conference Wednesday alongside his lawyer, Democratic state politician and Massachusetts Democratic State Committee donor Daniel Larkosh.

Larkosh stated that Reitzas allegedly attacked the videographer out of concern for his 4-year-old daughter, who he said was in the cab alongside Warren and her campaign staff.

Attorney Larkosh acknowledged that Reitzas “overreacted” to the presence of the Republican tracker.

“As a public figure, I encounter ‘trackers’ daily,” Brown wrote. “Their constant presence is part of the political process, and candidates and their staff need to respect their right to participate in that process. When candidates bring in outside help, they need to make a good faith effort to make sure those individuals do not overreact to people who are just doing their jobs. In this instance, it is clear Mr. Reitzas was not educated about the dos and don’ts of the campaign trail.”

“Mr. Reitzas was put into a situation that is foreign to most people, he did not understand what was going on and he let his emotions get the better of him. While this doesn’t excuse his behavior, Mr. Reitzas has recognized that he was out of line and his attorney has expressed regret on his behalf for what happened,” Brown wrote.

Public opinion of Reitzas’ actions has been negative.

“I don’t know if he thought he was a bodyguard, or he thought he was Secret Service or something, but I don’t think that was necessary,” a Martha’s Vineyard resident told a local television reporter.

“Morgan’s an idiot,” said another Martha’s Vineyard resident.

Reitzas did not respond to previous Free Beacon requests for comment.

A highly popular figure in his home state, an Army National Guard Colonel, and the author of the personal memoir Against All Odds, Sen. Brown leads his Democratic opponent Elizabeth Warren, according to a poll to be released soon by the Democratic polling firm Public Policy Polling: