U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren says she remains steadfast in her efforts to secure disaster assistance for Massachusetts fishermen, if frustrated by the very process that would deliver it.

"You know what it's like down here right now," Warren, D-Mass., said in a Wednesday night phone interview with the Times.

That is as succinct a description of the current state of Capitol Hill gridlock and partisan angst as you're likely to find. The blogosphere and punditocracy can go on forever, running the same ribbon of verbal asphalt over the same scarred foothills. Nine words seems to work so much better.

But there was real frustration in Warren's voice — a resignation that as Washington grinds on, running on devalued currency of payback and posturing, the commercial fishing industry in Gloucester and throughout New England slips a little further over the horizon.

Warren said she was heartened earlier in the week when Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick certified the scope of the economic hardship that has ripped through Bay State fishing communities after NOAA's drastic cuts in seminal groundfish quotas, thus opening the door to the possibility of low-interest loans to fishermen from the Small Business Administration.

Read the full story at Gloucester Times>>