Posted on 03/07/2009 10:04:02 PM PST by raccoonradio
Howie thread starting w/ his Sunday Herald column
Sunday column ping
Ask not for whom Deval Patrick tolls...he tolls for we
By Howie Carr | Sunday, March 8, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Three weeks from today, the tolls go up. Maybe it’s not too late to stop this rip-off.
Everybody’s obsessed with Deval Patrick’s proposed 19-cent gas tax increase, and rightly so. But some pol could make a name for himself trying to halt Deval’s other outrageous highway robbery - the two-step toll increases that start kicking in March 29.
Why doesn’t some ambitious solon file a bill to halt the toll hikes until, say, July 1, so we can see how Deval’s “transportation reforms” are coming along? Oh sure, most reps will throw up their hands and say they can’t do anything, that the hikes are a fait accompli, the Pike has to worry about its bond rating, etc., etc.
So what? Don’t we have a “rainy day” fund? Use some of that to tide the Pike hacks over until July. Impose a “stealing freeze” on the sticky-fingered toll-takers.
You pols say the Pike is a “quasi-independent authority.” But that didn’t stop you from packing the board with new members to protect the bloated idiot state senator who got the Pike into this jam that supposedly requires higher tolls.
I know, it’s St. Patrick’s Month. Yes, you’ll need to hold hearings. Will Speaker DeLeo deep-six the bill? Don’t forget (even if he has) that he represents Winthrop, Ground Zero of this latest Deval campaign against working people. Maybe the hacks will appease DeLeo by cutting Winthrop in on the toll-discount program, but $5 and then $7 tunnel tolls are not going to help property values there.
You say Deval will veto the bill? Let him. Did you get a load of his latest poll numbers? If they go any lower they’ll be calling him “W.” His credibility is zero. Increasingly he surrounds himself with poster boys for the hackerama, like his new fork-tongued frontman, the ever-loathsome Jim Aloisi.
In public, in Boston and Springfield, Aloisi talks up reform. “We need to have reform,” he said in Springfield. In Boston it was, “We are committed to reform.”
Then, behind closed doors, with the legislators, the career coatholder brushes it all off by saying “Reform is a meaningless slogan.”
It is, when Deval is in charge of it. Look at the marvelous savings he’s already realized from his vaunted civilian flagmen reform: $12,500. Wow! Next, Aloisi says they’re going to “abolish” the Turnpike Authority. The truth is, the only change will be the name above the tollbooths - “Mass Highway” instead of “Mass Pike.”
Together we con.
Deval is still talking about rescinding the toll increases if . . . if the Legislature cuts its own throat by voting him the highest gas tax in the United States. Now he hints maybe he’d be willing to phase in the gas tax increase, the way New Hampshire is going to do it.
The only difference is, New Hampshire has a three-year phase-in. Deval is thinking more in terms of three weeks. Please, some rep out there, file a bill to stop the increases. Put a rocket in Deval’s pocket. Think of the headlines you’d get. He might even fly back from Jamaica - nah, probably not. Deval’s been called a lot of things, but never a workaholic.
Three weeks and counting. Tick . . . tick . . . tick.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1156988
Coupe Deval strikes again...
Another Axelrod guy.
>>he represents Winthrop, Ground Zero of this latest Deval campaign against working people
Michelle McPhee (WTKK 96.9, 7-10 pm) lives in Eastie and has been actively pushing to stop this too
TODAY
(ad jingle: “The Globe’s here (the Globe’s here)
Ev’ry morning ev’ry day, life gets brighter when you say
The Globe’s here (the Globe’s here)”
...but...for how long?
1st Hour
The Boston Globe is on a list of 10 major newspapers in the country predicted to either shut down during the recession or to switch to an all-digital format. The article by 24/7 Wall St. columnist Douglas McIntyre, reports the Boston Globe is losing $1 million a week. Will you be saddened or gladdened by the demise of the Globe?
2nd Hour
Desperate panhandlers scrambling in this tough economy are risking life and limb wading into busy intersections - prompting city councilors to call for a crackdown and even the mayor himself to report dangerous encounters. What do you do when a bum approaches you?
3rd Hour
CHUMP LINE!!! Call 617-779-3469 and leave a message for Howie or Sandy that may be played back on the air!
Max Robins TV Guru and Vice President of The Paley Center (formerly The Museum of Television and Radio) will be with us to answer all of those nagging questions about your favorite show on the boob tube...
4th Hour
Wed column ping
Bay State gives ex-House speaker big, wet kiss goodbye
By Howie Carr | Wednesday, March 11, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
That didn’t take long - Sal DiMasi, the shady ex-Speaker of the Massachusetts House, is already collecting his monthly kiss in the mail.
Back in late January, the embattled speaker fled the State House, one step ahead of the posse. It’s a tradition in Massachusetts. And by the end of last month, DiMasi had his snout firmly reinserted back in the public trough - $4,951.86 a month, gross.
Annual take: $59,422.32.
Not too shabby, for a shameless hack who’s only 63. And although I can’t say for sure (Sal did not return calls yesterday to either his home or his office), I’m guessing he took the survivor’s option, which means the checks will keep on coming for his 44-year-old trophy second wife, Debbie.
Of course, this is what it was about all along, setting himself up for the kiss. Forget all that shovel-ready pap in his farewell speech. Yeah, he was about helping people all right - well, one person anyway. Himself. Like the Good Book says, charity begins at home. Even a home with three mortgages on it, like Sal’s condo, the third being given by his accountant, right before Mr. Vitale forgot to register as a lobbyist for ticket scalpers.
God helps those who help themselves, and Sal helped himself to a heaping helping, with ice cream on top.
The pension is what it’s all about for Felon Finneran too. It’s astounding, the audacity of this crooked chromedome who preceded DiMasi. The Felon copped a plea to a major-league felony, which for any normal thug would have meant three years and change at Club Fed. Yet Finneran didn’t do a day. Then he demands a pardon from the president, which thankfully Bush didn’t give him as he left office.
Now the Advil-addled Tommy Taxes wants his ticket to practice law back, a mere two years after it was pulled. Hey Felon, don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time. Bill Clinton’s law license got yanked for five years, and he was the president.
In addition to being a failed radio talk-show host, Felon Finneran is also a lobbyist, and yes, it is nice to have a law degree if you’re lurking around the State House corridors, buttonholing solons - think attorney-client privilege. But the bigger point is, once the Felon gets his ticket back, he can go to the State Retirement Board and get his own now-suspended kiss-in-the-mail reinstated.
Felon Finneran was only grabbing about $32,000 before he pleaded guilty, and they’ve been holding his monthly kisses in escrow. So he could be looking at a big payday - not big by the mega-hack standards of, say, Billy Bulger or Massport boss Tom Kinton - but a lot more do-re-mi than anyone in the Dreaded Private Sector could ever hope to see.
Remember the old bumper sticker: Keep Working, Millions on Welfare are Depending on You. We need a new one: Keep Working, Hacks on Public Pensions are Depending on You.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1157745
As always, thanks for the Howie pings!
Whenever I read a Howie column I wonder if anybody else in Massachusetts gives the slightest rat’s behind about the institutional corruption there. I mean, I don’t expect the Boston Globe to report or editorialize about it (it’s their political party, after all) but you would expect other radio hosts and other newspapers across the state to beat the drum a little.
Clearly, the parasites far outnumber the hosts in Massachusetts (as evidenced by nothing but Democrats in office) but I can’t figure out how the place sustains itself.
you’re welcome!
Fri column ping
All nail Caesar, please
By Howie Carr | Friday, March 13, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Hey, ex-Rep. Tony Verga - beware the Ides of March.
Tony is the three-watt bulb who after 28 years in the Legislature retired in January due to ill health - the voters in Gloucester got sick of him. He must have had a premonition, because during the last debate before the primary he suddenly began quoting Marc Antony’s funeral oration for Julius Caesar - “the evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones.”
The 73-year-old solon then told his puzzled constituents, “I kinda feel like Julius Caesar, because I’ve worked my tail off for Gloucester, Rockport and Essex, and I see you want to take my bones and bury them and any good that I did.”
The difference between Tony and Caesar is that the latter was buried in the Forum, while Tony has been interred in the House clerk’s office, for $40,000 a year.
His title: “senior assistant aide to the clerk.” You can always tell how ridiculous a state job is by the number of diminutives the description includes. Tony’s new job title has three, counting “aide.”
An attempt was made to reach Tony yesterday. I called the speaker’s office. The woman who answered said I had the wrong number, that I’d reached Bob DeLeo’s office. I’m looking for the House clerk’s office, I said. That’s where Verga, ahem, works.
“Is that where he is?” the speaker’s receptionist said.
Tony’s problem is, when you ask the new speaker’s spokesman about this latest nationwide search, you are told, “This hire was made by a previous speaker.”
That would be Honest Sal DiMasi. Last year Sal even sponsored a time for his doltish coatholder. But it was to no avail, and so, just before he fled, Sal handed the newly unemployed ex-solon that awfully important position of senior assistant aide to the clerk. A bailout, you might say. Tony Verga’s personal stimulus package.
Ominously, though, DeLeo’s aide said that Speaker DeLeo is “reviewing all positions.” To the Gloucester Daily Times, which broke the story, the flack added, “A transition is taking place.”
Et tu, Mr. Speakah?
Back to Verga’s pre-primary soliloquy: “There’s nobody in this room who’s called that I haven’t returned the call, but you’ve forgotten all that . . . My character is to do good things for people. I’m a people person.”
You always hate to lose a . . . people person. But I think the end is near. Brutus, I mean Bobby DeLeo, advances on the Julius Caesar of Gloucester, dagger in hand. But when Tony is gone, perhaps he will have his own Marc Antony, or at least a Paul Kujawski, to deliver the eulogy: He was the noblest hack of them all.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1158209
State board recommends Finneran be disbarred
The state Board of Bar Overseers has recommended that former House Speaker and WRKO radio host Thomas M. Finneran be disbarred, a decision that could prevent him from ever practicing law again in Massachusetts.
Only one member of the 12-person board, which deliberated Monday night, cast a dissenting vote. Eight of the members are lawyers.
Finneran’s license to practice law was suspended in 2007 after he pleaded guilty to giving false testimony in a federal lawsuit over his role as speaker in a 2002 redistricting plan that diminished minority clout. Finneran was convicted of obstruction of justice.
Finneran plans to keep fighting to get his law license back, his attorney tells the Herald today.
—
Herald Pulse Poll
Should Tom Finneran be disbarred from radio, too?
52% - Yes, he’s lost his credibility
19% - Yes, only because he’s boring
16% - No, lots of hacks are on the radio
13% - No, I enjoy listening to him
Fri show ping
FRIDAY, MARCH 13
1st Hour
The state Board of Bar Overseers has recommended that former House Speaker and WRKO radio host Thomas M. Finneran be disbarred, a decision that could prevent him from ever practicing law again in Massachusetts. Are you saddened or gladdened?
2nd Hour
3rd Hour
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4th Hour
Does Ted Kennedy still have a law licence after Chappaquiddick?
good question...
special Sat column ping!
Felon Finneran fails to scale justice
By Howie Carr | Saturday, March 14, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
There is a God.
Poor Felon Finneran, for once in his squalid life, Mistah Speakah couldn’t put the fix in, not even to get back his ticket to practice law. So much for the Advil defense - that his hip was killing him, or maybe his knee, or was it both?
Now the Board of Bar Overseers votes 11-1 to recommend that he be disbarred - and who is this courageous Erik Lund character who did the right thing, the lone dissenter who voted to give Tommy Taxes yet another slap on the wrist.
More importantly, does Erik Lund have a brother-in-law who needs a job at the Pike as a sign painter, or maybe at the Health and Education Facilities Authority, as an assistant to the assistant?
Sure, and the St. Patrick’s Day breakfast is tomorrow, too. Faith bejesus, this tragic news’ll be putting quite the pall on the festivities tomorrow morning down at Halitosis Hall. And we do know that Felon Finneran will be there, hosting a special edition of his abysmal radio show.
It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy, that bug-eyed, sticky-fingered little chromedome. That’s the good news. The bad news is, now he’ll still be stinking up the radio airwaves - my airwaves - with ratings lower than whale excrement. From Jerry Williams to gerrymandering.
The caveat is, this was only a recommendation by the BBO. Lately, though, the SJC has been coming down harder on crooked lawyers, usually in cases involving clients’ funds. But the fact is, the Felon has pickpocketed everybody in the commonwealth. Everyone in the state who makes, say, $50,000 a year has $150 stolen from him every year thanks to Felon Finneran’s imperious decision to stop the voter-approved rollback of the state income tax from 5.3 to 5 percent in 2000.
Felon Finneran is a disgrace. He’s tight with every shady character lurking in the shadows of the State House. You know state Sen. Marian Walsh, also known as “Mother Superior,” who just got the $175,000 hack job from Deval, after her husband Paul Buckley got a $113,000 hack job at age 70 from the governor, after Buck reached mandatory retirement age as a judge. This couple’s greed knows no bounds.
In 1999, when Buck was nominated for the judgeship, guess who testified at his Governor’s Council hearing? “He is a giant,” the Felon said of Buckley.
Other than his utter amorality, Finneran’s problem is that he’s always fancied himself the smartest guy in the room. And in fact this may have been true at the State House, where below-average is the new average. But once he hits Park Street, the Felon is just another unemployable hack with a red nose who moves his lips when he reads.
One last question, and this is just for you, Felon Finneran: Do you think this is going to help or hurt your efforts to get back that $32,000-a-year state pension you lost when you pleaded guilty?
Happy St. Patrick’s Day, boyo!
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1158453
Glad they were so specific :)
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