Posted on 04/25/2009 9:48:10 PM PDT by raccoonradio
Howie thread for the week starting off with his Sunday Herald column
Sunday Herald column ping
Howie Carr solves this mess
By Howie Carr | Sunday, April 26, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Tomorrow, the House begins budget hearings against a dire fiscal backdrop - a state that is $400 million in the red, with layoffs, service cuts and new taxes looming. Following is Howie Carr’s 10-point plan for rescuing Massachusetts.
Let’s get right to the cutting - this is by no means a comprehensive list, but it’ll do for a start.
No. 1: Close at least one-third of the state’s district courthouses and lay off everybody working in them, from judges to janitors. We’re not talking about shutting down any courts with heavy caseloads, only places with busier courts nearby (like Charlestown and Brookline) or those in the boondocks, where seldom is heard any case of any significance, and never on Fridays.
Perhaps the best example of an unneeded district court is the one in Ipswich, covering those crime-ridden burgs of Hamilton, Wenham, Topsfield and Ipswich. Let Newburyport handle all those polo-pony rustling cases, not to mention the clam poachers.
How about Orange District Court? According to Mass. Lawyers Diary, Orange has two judges, a clerk-magistrate, an assistant clerk magistrate, a sessions clerk, a chief probation officer, an assistant chief probation officer and three probation officers. And that doesn’t even include the “custodians,” translators or secretaries.
Consider Stoughton District Court. It employs five - count ’em, five - probation officers. How many urine samples do you really need to collect each week in the mean streets of Avon?
Talk about forgotten but not gone. At Gardner District Court, one $67,039.95-a-year probation officer is named Monte G. Basbas Jr. Surely he’s not related to the late Monte G. Basbas Sr., former mayor of Newton and then presiding justice of the Newton District Court.
A very partial list of other eminently closable courthouses: Hingham, Wareham, Attleboro, Natick, Peabody, Palmer, Dudley, Clinton, Uxbridge and Winchendon.
No. 2: Move as many agencies and branches as possible out of their privately owned digs where they are often charged exorbitant rents by well-connected landlords. How many RMV branches could you move into the shuttered courthouses?
No. 3: Mr. Patrick, tear down those toll booths. It is absolutely the most ineffective way to collect taxes - according to at least one estimate, it costs as much as 79 cents to collect a buck at the tollbooths, and that doesn’t even include the rampant thievery. The gas tax, as odious as it is, costs less than a penny to collect a dollar’s worth of taxes.
No. 4: This one is for the Republican party: Run candidates in every legislative district, even if you have to put up the lame and the halt. That was how Tip O’Neill did it in the 1940s - he’d field Democrats in even the most Republican districts, getting the challenger’s name out and waiting for the GOP incumbent to retire or move on, at which point the Democrat would have more name recognition than the new Republican. Every cycle, Tip’s Dems picked off a few more GOP seats. The Democrats finally took over the Massachusetts House in 1946, and haven’t looked back. The other plus: Whenever a summer scandal breaks (think OUI, think young girlfriend working for lobbyist, think money-laundering scheme), the Republicans would already have a candidate in place to take advantage of the anti-incumbent vote.
No. 5: Begin ending entitlements. Take the Quinn Bill - please. Does anyone, even cops, seriously argue that a B.A. these days means anything other than BS? Yet these cops’ phony-baloney degrees are costing the taxpayers $50 million a year. A leadership effort in the House to rein them in has already failed, even before the budget comes to the floor. The solons are more fearful of the unions than they are of the taxpayers, and as long as they are running unopposed (see No. 4) why shouldn’t they be?
No. 6: Abolish outside sections to the budget, those hundreds of pages of arcane matters attached in conference committee without either public input or fingerprints. This is where a lot of the real mischief occurs, especially with pension finagling. Every piece of legislation should have a hearing and be debated openly, which happens less than ever - although for some reason, the steep drop-off in formal sessions has caused no corresponding decrease in the number of days the reps claim they come to the State House, the better to collect their per diems.
No. 7: Speaking of which, abolish per diems for legislators. It’s a relatively small amount of money (between $10 and $110 a day) but all that free money (doled out on the honor system, believe it or not) sends the wrong message. Their constituents don’t get paid for driving to work, why should the reps? And while we’re at, no more take-home state vehicles, period.
No. 8: Fire every state employee with more than one diminutive in his title. Words like deputy, associate, assistant, vice, executive - these are mostly code words for “hack.” The use of two or more of them in one job description - say, “associate vice chancellor” - virtually guarantees that you are talking about someone with a relative in . . . a district courthouse. Added benefit: These layabouts tend to be among the highest paid - check it out for yourself by going to thestate payroll databases on the Herald Web site.
No. 9: Henceforward, no more defined-benefit pensions. Obviously, you can’t renege on commitments already made to people who’ve paid in, but you can freeze all future contributions and move them to 401(k)s, just the way it’s been done to millions of workers in the Dreaded Private Sector. Public employees used to get good pensions because they weren’t paid as much as they theoretically could have made in the DPS. Now they make more money - a lot more, in most cases. They don’t have to worry nearly as much about losing their jobs, they get three times as many sick days, plus extra holidays . . . and behind all that comes the pension.
No. 10: So much waste, fraud and abuse, so little space. Make the state employees pay more of their health-care costs, and any city or town that won’t crack down on “fixed costs” should be penalized with corresponding cuts in local aid. Abolish all quasi-public authorities - it’s too easy for hacks to hide in them, undetected, like foot fungus. Don’t allow any municipality to impose any local-option taxes (such as a 7 percent meals tax) unless the local electorate has OK’d a Prop 2 override. If Boston needs so much dough, how come Mumbles never goes to the voters seeking their OK for an increase in the property tax?
And finally, elected officials have to start reading what they vote on or sign off on. How pathetic is it that city officials in Malden and Lynn claim they had no idea they were handing out fat pensions to undeserving hacks - and we all have such a low opinion of their intelligence that we believe they were that stupid?
The problem is, in a democracy, the people get the government they deserve. Nothing happens until the taxpayers wake up, start taking names and kicking butt. Don’t hold your breath.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1168070
Anyone listening to Howie today? What is wrong with Sandy? She must be pms’ing...........
I think she is overworked
Working the phones, board, handing out SWAG, maybe...
As an aside, the “WCRN True Talk 830” URL seems to be cutting out today
http://www.wcrnradio.com/listen.asx
“A nation trying to tax itself into prosperity, is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.” – Winston Churchill (1903)
She has help, forget the guys nickname but she’s got someone there helping out......
Yeah her helper is “Junior” —and once a week, usually on Fridays (he comes in handy with death pools) he gets
“Horshack” to help.
Wed. column ping
For Deval Patrick & crew, three’s company
By Howie Carr | Wednesday, April 29, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Who says Gov. Deval Patrick has been Romney-ized - neutered by the Legislature, ignored when he isn’t being humiliated by having his vetoes overriden?
But Deval continues to go about his very important duties, with the help of his crackerjack staff. Let’s look at three Deval coatholders, I mean, public servants.
First, consider the “director of civic engagement,” who is not to be confused with the “director of grassroots governance and Commonwealth Corps,” neither of whom has duties that in any way overlap with the “director of the office of community affairs.”
Total annual take: $270,698.
A call was placed to the governor’s office, and a flack named Rebecca Deusser responded by e-mail, saying her boss has reduced positions from his own staff, and these three positions are essential to accomplishing his goals.
Okaaaay. Let’s get straight to it. The director of civic engagement is Brendan Ryan, and he makes $97,849 a year. He is responsible for “connecting the public with state government in order to inform and advance Gov. Patrick’s public policy agenda.” Ah yes, the governor’s agenda - you know, like he was against the 25 percent increase in the sales tax Monday, but yesterday . . . not so much.
Next, we have the director of grassroots governance, one Elizabeth Clay. She makes $75,000 a year. Her job is “to use New Media to facilitate greater civic awareness and online citizen participation.” In other words, she’s ambassador to the moonbats. Maybe they’ll update the Web site more often once the Globe folds. Here’s a sample of her other duties:
“Facilitate revitalization ... attend meetings, communicate with Chairs to promote their work as civic engagement vehicles.” Stop the tape - I thought civic engagement was the responsibility of the director of civic engagement.
Next, come on down Ron Bell, director of the governor’s Office of Community Affairs, who is paid the same as the director of civic engagement - $97,849. Ron Bell is a “bridge” to “various constituencies such as urban, communities of color, immigrant, faith-based, recovery. ... Promotes grass-roots organizing, civic engagement ...”
How much civic engagement can one administration do? And what exactly is ... civic engagement?
“Organizes town hall meetings and rallies. Holds and attends meetings.”
Attends meetings? I thought that was Elizabeth Clay’s job, when she communicates with Chairs.
This nonsense makes Marian Walsh’s $175,000-a-year job look real.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1168781
A crawler on Fox 25 today said MA was spending some huge amount of money on job retraining and other help for the unemployed. I thought it would be better to slash business taxes so there’d be some actual jobs created for them. Maybe they’re going to retrain people in being “Friends of Deval” — that seems to be the only job growth area in this state! ;-)
>>Also noteworthy: Boston Globe Magazine writer Charlie Pierce's irate take on the way the paper's crisis has been covered by the Herald, which has combined strong reporting with gleeful malice. (That day's Herald offered 10 suggestions for saving the Globe. Here's number seven: "Persuade Legislature to mandate all fish must be wrapped in Metro section.") "I've never been more embarrassed by the time I spent at the Herald [as a sportswriter] than I have been in the last two weeks," Pierce later told me. ("I guess tough coverage is only okay if the Globe happens to be the paper dishing it out," replies a long-time Herald employee, calling the Globe's coverage of the Herald's 1982 near-demise "a relentless barrage the entire town interpreted as a calculated attempt to put us in our grave.")
“Boston Globe Magazine writer Charlie Pierce’s irate take on the way the paper’s crisis has been covered by the Herald, which has combined strong reporting with gleeful malice.”
Geez, there must be some sort of anti-bullying legislation the little dimwits could use to protect themselves...
Is this the Charlie Pierce who used to cover sports? I know there are two CP’s who write for the Glob. If it’s the sports one, have fun in the unemployment line with you’re Hawaiian shirt and scraggly ass beard. He’s a complete jackass...
I think that’s the one. He’s the one in the S. Globe Magazine
and the caricature they have of him shows he has glasses, a beard, and his eyes seem kinda crossed.
Here is an actual pic etc
http://bostonglobe.com/news/resources/bio.aspx?id=5288
From the Media Resource Center’s 2004 awards for the most outrageously biased liberal commentators, they have this
Pierce gem from ‘03—it won.
http://www.mediaresearch.org/notablequotables/dishonor/04/award5.asp
(linked to article)
Pierce, who won an award for liberal bias from the Media Research Center, would be a great addition to 1510. Sure, hire the unemployed Globies at WWZN. New slogan: The Globe's _HERE_....
That’s him. Asshat...
Herald to raise price to $1 on May 11. Price is already at $1 30 mi. outside the city, and will remain the same. Price of
Sunday paper will remain the same. Publisher citing costs
(declining ad revenue, etc. I’m sure too). Will Globe be gone by then? We’ll see.
Fri column ping
Runaround was as adventurous as judge’s ride home
By Howie Carr | Friday, May 1, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
It’s not that every Massachusetts judge is bad. The problem comes from that 98 percent of the judiciary that give the other 2 percent such a terrible reputation.
So now we have - finally - the official Lexington PD report on the OUI arrest of Superior Court Judge Christine McEvoy. She ingested a bad ice cube at a 99 Pub on April 15 and then began swerving all around 128 even before she exited in Lexington.
And what is it about 128 between Needham and Lexington - it’s a veritable Bermuda Triangle for the Massachusetts judiciary. Remember Appeals Court Judge Joe Trainor, a career hack and longtime coatholder for Felon Finneran - 128 is where they bagged Judge Joe a few years back.
Yeah, and they threw the book at Trainor too. Another judge allowed him to do his 16-week “drunk school” obligation in one weekend - in New Hampshire.
You can already see the way the McEvoy case will play out just by the runaround they put us through to get the report. First we called the Lexington PD, who bumped us to the Middlesex DA, who bumped us to the Essex DA, who told us the only way we get the report was to go out to the Concord court, Christine’s old stomping grounds.
The Herald’s Laurel Sweet finally got the incident report, and you already know how Officer Mercer said, “I held on to McEvoy as we walked to the booking room as she was unsteady while walking or standing. During this whole time, I had noticed McEvoy’s slurred speech.”
Odd, because she claimed she had consumed only a “couple glasses of wine.” Several country songs come to mind here. Drinkin’ doubles don’t make a party. What made Milwaukee famous has made a loser out of her.
At least she didn’t ask, “Do you know who I am?” As far as we know, anyway.
God bless one Stephen Smith Jr. He’s the motorist who observed the esteemed jurist’s “erratic” driving on 128, made the call to the staties and then convinced a Lexington cop to follow her after she veered off the highway and onto a town street. I just hope Mr. Smith doesn’t find himself in front of any local hack judge anytime soon.
Here’s some more on the judge’s behavior after she was stopped. A cop went over and knocked on the window of her 2007 Audi. The judge “did not react for a few seconds and then opened the door. I asked her to roll down her window so I could speak with her. She rolled the window down, but left the door open.”
Good luck, Judge McEvoy, but you won’t need any. I’ll bet you get a judge just as tough as the one Judge Trainor got.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1169293
LOL, Massachusetts. All you can do is shake your head.
Massachusetts......it’s all here!
Bob Berg of Berg’s Shirts, Corinna, ME just called in.
His T-shirts:
https://www.bergsportswear.com/productcart/pc/berg_home.asp?idCategory=2
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.