Posted on 10/01/2011 9:28:16 PM PDT by raccoonradio
Howie thread for the week starting with his Sunday Herald column
Senators win big in gamble for slots jobs
By Howie Carr
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Big debate in the state Senate last week — how long should the solons have to wait after leaving the august body before taking a job at one of the state’s new casinos?
The reformers wanted a five-year “cooling-off period,” while the hacks couldn’t bear to wait more than one year before grabbing their no-show, six-figure jobs.
Guess who prevailed in the end? It’s too bad, because a compromise could have been easily worked out. They could have had the cooling-off period run concurrently with the ex-solon’s probation after he (or she) finishes the inevitable prison sentence.
Still, it was quite a debate. The trouble was started by an anti-casino moonbat from Acton named Jamie Eldridge. He had the temerity to suggest that if they were going to approve three casinos and one slots parlor, it should be a boon for the entire state, “not an economic bill for legislators.”
How dare he!
First Sen. Stephen Brewer said, “We don’t get rich doing this.”
That’s right. Billy Bulger’s pension is only $200,000 a year.
What you have to understand is that many senators have never had a real job. The career trajectory often goes something like this: aide to a solon, then state rep, then state senator and, finally, prison inmate.
Sen. Stanley Rosenberg of Amherst talked about the bum rap lawmakers get when they submit to the usual nationwide searches for state jobs.
“We had a colleague who twice became a finalist for a college presidency. He was turned down because he was a former legislator and the perception about what it meant to be a legislator.”
I think he’s referring to a genius named David Magnani. He had a Ph.D., but once had to run for re-election on stickers because he forgot to file his nomination papers.
Here is a sentence from Dr. Magnani’s dissertation: “Since the earth is becoming increasingly covered by humans and centric pressure is now building due to increased numbers and the increased psychic space of each individual, competition no longer serves, particularly in relation to evolutionary future of human synergy.”
Obviously, a blinding intellect, passed over merely because he was a state senator.
Sen. Gale Canderas next stood up to say that by enacting a five-year waiting period, “We’re creating an assumption that people in this body cannot operate with integrity.”
Paging Sens. Wilkerson, Marzilli and Galluccio, and that’s just the most recent generation of jailbirds.
Well, you can figure out how this story ends. The Democrats went behind closed doors, and when they came out, the five-year cooling-off period had turned into 12 months. And so, coming soon to a casino near you will be a whole new crew of six-figure layabouts — a vice president for governmental relations, ably assisted by an assistant vice president for governmental relations, an associate vice president, a deputy veep, an executive secretary and a senior administrative assistant.
Just yell, “Senator!” and they’ll all come running.
Wed column ping. Debate can be seen at bostonherald.com
Debate music to Elizabeth Warren’s ears
By Howie Carr | Wednesday, October 5, 2011 | http://www.bostonherald.com
What kind of Democratic debate was that last night when the word “Bush” wasn’t mentioned until 54 minutes in, and then by the moderator, Marty Meehan, and only in passing?
Elizabeth Warren acted like she’d already won the primary, and she probably has, considering her not-ready-for-prime-time opponents. She’s from Oklahoma, you know, where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain.
And nobody even asked if it’s true that the wavin’ wheat does sure smell sweet when the wind comes right behind the rain.
A Harvard law professor who moved to Massachusetts in 1995 running for the Senate on the platform of more bureaucracy — what could possibly go wrong?
Even though Warren is being handed the nomination, she did come up with some of the best lines of the night, namely when asked how she paid her way through college.
“I kept my clothes on,” she said.
She’s going to stand up “on behalf of middle-class families,” or, as Barack Obama calls them, “millionaires and billionaires.” She said “people should not be on unemployment” — presumably she was talking about Michael Connolly, although I very much doubt she’s ever heard of the former secretary of space.
Speaking of the State House, isn’t there an open state Senate seat Rep. Tom Conroy should be running for? He bragged (twice) that he’s the only candidate who’s ever knocked off a Republican incumbent, namely Susan Pope, who had never been compared to Scott Brown before.
At least he called Scott Brown an “empty suit.” That’s the kind of tough talk that paid off so handsomely for Mike Capuano in 2009.
They’re all for in-state tuition for illegal aliens, whom they prefer to call “undocumented.” They all want the troops out of Afghanistan faster. They’re all in favor of abortion on demand. Infrastructure is very important. They support the dirty hippies in Liberty Square. In other words, they’re all moonbats to greater or lesser degrees, but I’d have to say Bob Massie came across as the moonbat’s moonbat.”
“I am a social justice activist,” he said. Massie was also the only one who didn’t bite his tongue on the subject of the 62-year-old Sooner gal being anointed as the nominee, mentioning “a bit of a rush to judgment as some candidates have gotten more attention than others.”
Ya think, Bob? There’s another song from the musical “Oklahoma” that perfectly sums up Warren’s relationship with her fellow carpetbaggers on Morrissey Boulevard — “People will say we’re in love.”
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1371053
death pool at 4
Fri column ping
Lifelong hack takes the prize for greed
By Howie Carr | Friday, October 7, 2011 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Photo
Photo by Staff graphic
And the 2011 Nobel Prize for open and gross hackery goes to ... Michael J. Connolly!
For the past 40 years he’s been feeding at the trough. And now, at the age of 64, in what should be the twilight of his career, this hack’s hack takes it to a new level. He starts licking the plate.
The career coat-holder goes back to the days of Joe Timilty on the Boston City Council. He has led a charmed life, jumping from one hack sinecure to another – City Council aide, state rep, secretary of state, the Boston Licensing Board.
And now, 16 years after beginning to collect his $2,383-a-month state pension (total so far: $457,000), he doesn’t get reappointed by the governor to the Boston Licensing Board. So he files for ... unemployment.
Unemployment! He wasn’t fired, he just wasn’t reappointed, and now he collects another $500 or so per week.
How shameful is this? Even Sal DiMasi is embarrassed by this rip-off. Connolly walks down the street and people give him the evil eye and he smiles back. He has no pride.
Did I mention, his wife is a $135,000-a-year judge, the chief justice of the district courts? And that his son, John Connolly, makes $87,500 a year as a Boston city councilor, and is running for re-election this year? Thanks, Dad — you can’t buy this kind of publicity.
To fully appreciate the audacity, you have to consider Mike Connolly’s slapstick career. When John Belushi died of a drug overdose, he wanted to fly the state flag at half-staff. One day, at a meeting, he said, “Next week we’ll meet on Wednesday. Now, what day of the week does Wednesday fall on next week?”
I was there with him in Fitchburg when he was begging for votes at a state convention, and he told the Fitchburg delegates, “It’s always great to be back here in Pittsburgh.” One time he conducted an entire press conference in Room 157 in the State House with his zipper open.
He fancied himself an auteur, a Hollywood wannabee. He did a movie about the State House. I was in it. According to his aides, while he was writing the screenplay, he would hide it in the freezer of his house.
One reason he’s always skated along is that he was tight with the Republican governors who ran the state in the 90s. His brother-in-law, Jim Connolly, was a city councilor who got in with Welducci early. I’m pretty sure Paul Cellucci went to Holy Cross with Mike Connolly and the future judge, Lynda Connolly Connolly. Thus the judicial and Boston Licensing Board appointments.
Now the Republican governors are long gone, but the Connollys all continue to ... lick the plate. You’ll need the Jaws of Life to pry any of them off the public payroll.
By the way, the runner-up for the hack Nobel this year was Ron Bell — the poster boy for gout. If Bell’s convicted of DUI, his next job will be with Drunk the Vote. Against Mike Connolly, he never had a chance.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1371588
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