Howie Carr thread for May 16-31, 2013

Howie thread for the second part of the month starting with his Fri 5/17/13 column, actually; reminder that Howie is nationwide on Tue as he again fills in for Mark Levin (6-9 pm ET though 7-10 on WRKO)

Fri column ping

Note praising Allah  didn’t float PC boat

by Howie Carr, Boston Herald, 5/17/13

Finally, we get the note in the boat — a month late.

Do you how much media  effort has been devoted to  unearthing what Dzhokhar Tsarnaev apparently thought was his last will and testament? But somehow, the cops held it tight until yesterday.

Unconfirmed stories have circulated that in Dave Henneberry’s backyard in Watertown that Friday evening, the feds went so far as to check out the cellphones of the local cops, to make sure no one had snapped a photo of the note in the boat.

No big surprises in the note in the boat. The Joker said his brother Speedbump was a “martyr in paradise,” and that the victims in Boston were “collateral damage” for Muslim civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. He praised Allah and said, “When you attack one Muslim, you attack all Muslims.” Tell that to the Syrians, EBT boy.

The big question is, Why the monthlong blackout on the note in the boat? Why didn’t the feds release it immediately?

And the answer is obvious. It didn’t fit the Politically Correct narrative, that the reasons for this shocking atrocity remained a mystery, a riddle, an enigma, wink wink nudge nudge.

The Beautiful People were all toeing the PC line, that the bomber couldn’t have possibly been anybody except a cracker redneck Tea Party member. That was the unanimous verdict on MSNBC. Hey, it happened on Tax Day. That was David Axelrod’s theory. A blogger said he was praying that it was a “white” terrorist, because if the bombers were who they turned out to be, it would hurt Dear Leader’s agenda.

This Benghazi-like agitprop went right to the top.

Barack Obama, April 15: “We still do not know who did this, or why, and people shouldn’t jump to conclusions before we have all the facts.”

Technically, we didn’t know, but …

Deval Patrick, April 16: “There are times when all kinds of  forces conspire to make people think of categories of people sometimes in uncharitable ways.”

Even after he was arrested, the Joker was portrayed by the rumpswab media as a scrawny, floppy-haired “All-American boy.” Some stories are just too good to check out, especially if the facts will demolish Dear Leader’s talking points.

The note in the boat turned up Friday night. Seems likely that Deval Patrick knew what was in it soon thereafter. But that Sunday, he goes on “Face the Nation” and Bob Schieffer asks him if he has “any clearer idea” why the “two young men” did it.

“Not yet, Bob. Uh, and it’s hard, it’s hard for me and for many to imagine what could motivate uh, people to, uh, harm, uh, innocent men, women and children, uh, in the way that, uh, these two fellows did.”

Was it really that hard to imagine? And how could you not know, if you had read the note in the boat?

All together now, repeat after me: Nothing to see here folks, move along...

Sun column ping

Carr: Moonbats love their scapegoat
Sunday, May 19, 2013 By: Howie Carr

It must be George W. Bush’s fault. Everything else is.

The moonbats’ verdict is in. Barack Obama couldn’t possibly have done all those terrible things the vast right-wing conspiracy is accusing him of. And they’re not scandals, either. Obama’s troubles are merely “controversies” or, to use Dear Leader’s own phrase, a sideshow. Scandals only happen to Republicans, just like Deval Patrick didn’t go on a junket to Ireland. It was a “trade mission.”

Democrats never make mistakes either — “mistakes were made,” in the passive voice.

Special prosecutor? Are you kidding, that’s only for the really big sideshows, like the so-called outing of Valerie Plame, a glorified secretary, er, “operations officer” at CIA headquarters. The moonbats dared to dream she might bring down Karl Rove, or even Dick Cheney. But there was no there there, to borrow another favorite phrase from the erstwhile boss of the Choom Gang.

This proliferation of … troubles is obviously the handiwork of the George Bush gang, starting with the Supreme Court.

See, it’s all their fault with the Citizens United decision. How dare the Court uphold the First Amendment and provide an equal playing field in fundraising for the GOP? Once those bitter clingers started setting up their 501(c)4 tax-exempt organizations, the IRS had no choice but to go after the Tea Party.

So what if American citizens in the Tea Party were harassed by the IRS while the president’s brother Abon’go Malik Obama got the tax exemption on his alleged foundation backdated. That’s called reparations, like Auntie Zeituni collecting welfare as an illegal alien or Uncle Omar having his OUI broomed. Right, Abon’go?

Another guilty Republican: Willard Mitt Romney. A columnist for The New York Times last week even mentioned for about the thousandth time how Mitt once drove to Michigan with his Irish setter Seamus on the roof. Who cares about Benghazi? Let’s not overlook the real criminals here.

Besides, Benghazi happened last September, a long time ago according to Dear Leader’s flack, Mr. Claire Shipman. George Bush hasn’t been president since January 2009, so he obviously must have had a hand in it, unless we’re talking about $1.69-a-gallon gas and 4 percent unemployment with nine million more people in the work force.

Hillary Clinton recently asked a congressional committee trying to affix blame for Benghazi, “What does it matter?”

What does it matter? It matters plenty, if you can blame Republicans for it. You know they cut the FY 2012 budget for State Department security, don’t you? Oh sure, Hillary made sure the U.S. embassy in Vienna got a new charging station for their diplomatic Volts. But let’s keep our Democrat talking points straight.

Mostly, the comrades parrot the lines they hear every night on MSNBC. For people who once proudly called themselves “reality-based,” the low-information voters surely do a good job of ignoring reality.

First, if given a choice, they don’t even talk about the “controversies.”

Second fallback position: Obama couldn’t have done it.

Third fallback position: So what? George Bush did a lot worse than whatever Barack Obama didn’t do.

Fourth fallback position: You’re a racist.

Cindy Sheehan could not be reached for comment. Ditto, Code Pink. Surely some no-nonsense blogger somewhere is planning a candlelight vigil tonight to denounce the Patriot Act. A George Soros front group admits the IRS illegally leaked it documents with which to smear the Tea Party — a collective yawn. But every community college adjunct professor wants to stop the Koch brothers from buying the L.A. Times because … well, they’ll think of some reason.

Obama understands his constituents perfectly. They don’t care what he does to the Constitution, the economy or his “enemies,” as long as he provides them with gay marriage, legalized weed and, most important of all, a recharged EBT card the first of every month.

Wed column ping

Now we’re paying for lab blunder in blood
Wednesday, May 22, 2013 By: Howie Carr

Annie Dookhan finally has blood on her hands, a murder victim in Brockton killed last week, allegedly by a drug dealer cut loose because of Dookhan’s criminally slipshod work as a chemist at the state crime lab.

More than 1,000 drug dealers have already been cut loose, and as one district attorney put it, the only thing that’s surprising is that it’s taken this long to chalk up the first homicide.

“How many more will there be?” Brockton Mayor Linda Balzotti was quoted as saying.

The answer is, a lot.

The president of the Brockton City Council, Timothy Cruise, was quoted as saying of Dookhan, “I put the blame on her, and I put the blame on her supervisors.”

And who would those supervisors be? Perhaps Gov. Deval Patrick? But of course, he can’t be blamed for everything. Besides, was he even in the country when the murder occurred? Or was he on his junket — I mean, trade mission — to Ireland?>

Too bad there’s not some computer program that could be used to track the increasing number of appearances of the word “Dookhan” in police reports. I saw one recently in a BPD report of a shoplifting incident last month at a sunglasses store on Newbury Street in the Back Bay.

The 43-year-old bicyclist, who was well-known to the staff, took a pair of sunglasses off his head “and switched them out with a black and silver colored pair of Prada sunglasses (valued at $310).”

As the hippie jumped on his bike, the cops grabbed him and he “began to shout, swear and threaten them.”

“I’m going to bleep you up ... I know who you are ... I got a 45-cal. on me ... That’s right I’m on crack right now ... I know who you are detective and I’m going to get you back ... put me in a cage, I belong in a cage. ...”

And finally my favorite: “That’s all right, I got a case with Dookhan.”

What do you suppose he meant by that? Now, if he had a criminal “case” with her, obviously he’d already have cashed in his chips and been freed. (Another notch on the ACLU’s belt!) So does this mean he has a civil case pending, for false arrest, and that soon enough, he’ll be able not only to make bail, but also afford a pair of unshoplifted $310 Prada shades?

Some predictions have been made that all these cases with Dookhan and her tampered-with samples and her perjury must cost the state millions of dollars before it’s all over. Not to mention the occasional murders like last week in Brockton.

Here’s one more for you from the BPD. A 22-year-old hippie from Arlington bought some pot, in plain view, and the cops closed in, telling him he would be issued a civil citation for possession of less than an ounce.

“What’s the problem?” this low-information voter asked. “Marijuana is not a drug, Obama made it legal.”

Case closed.

Special Thu column ping (of course Howie's columns tend to be on Sun, Wed, and Fri but sometimes there will be extra columns or they'll just move his Fri one up a day, etc.)

Carr: ‘Crash’ is no test dummy
Thursday, May 23, 2013 By: Howie Carr

The Worcester Chamber of Commerce?

Nobody’s all that surprised to see Tim “Crash” Murray take the golden parachute. But shouldn’t it have been a more appropriate job, like, say, with NASCAR?

But instead the lieutenant governor goes with the Chamber. And as Murray departs, to the regret of none and the relief of all, a Gore Vidal line comes to mind: “No talent is not enough.”

Actually, though, Tim Murphy — as Eddie Markey calls him — got a lot farther up the political totem pole than he had any business doing. Maybe it was the fact he bonded early with his boss, Gov. Deval Patrick. Despite their wildly disparate backgrounds — Tim was working class, while Deval grew up in a privileged affirmative-action Harvard-entitled caste — they had one thing in common.

Both took three tries to pass the bar exam.

But in the end, Deval was the Teflon governor with the Velcro lieutenant governor. Deval could get away with Ameriquest. But once Crash wandered into the Mike McLaughlin quicksand, he was sunk.

In October 2011, the story broke of Mike McLaughlin’s final sticky-fingered scam, at the Chelsea Housing Authority. Three days later, in his jammies at dawn, Tim Murray floored his state Crown Vic into a wall in Sterling while doing 108 mph. Crash claimed he was doing the speed limit. He also refused to give up his cellphone records, a public document. The head of the state police backed him up, and was rewarded with a judgeship.

It’s clear now that Timmy won’t be indicted. The Chamber would never have grabbed him off the waiver wire for $200,000 a year if he were in a photo finish with a grand jury. No local cops have the stomach to prosecute a go-along-to-get-along hack Democrat.

U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz couldn’t even bring herself to really throw the book at then-Rep. Stat Smith of Everett, a guy so crooked he needs a corkscrew to get into his pants in the morning.

Then there’s Marcia Coakley. Consider Brian Wallace, Tim Cahill, Jack O’Brien — she’ll stick with enforcing the lemon law from now on, thank you.

Felon McLaughlin is the only guy who could deliver Crash’s head on a platter. But as sleazy as he is, McLaughlin would need corroborating witnesses to convince a jury. That’s not his style, believe me.

Meanwhile, Timmy’s hack friends should be naming their kids after him. Ex-Rep. Jimmy Leary is now on the UMass Medical payroll for $201,960.09. Ex-Rep. John Quinn now makes $103,000 a year at UMass Dartmouth.

Timmy won’t be at the Chamber forever. I’m sure he’s seen Tommy O’Neill around town. As simple as he is, Timmy would still be a narrow favorite over Tommy in an MCAS death match. No ex-lieutenant governor has ever starved to death. At least that’s what Crash is hoping.

Fri column ping

State House gateway to bad behavior
Friday, May 24, 2013 by Howie Carr, Boston Herald

If the State House had a liquor license, it would have long since been padlocked as a public nuisance.

None of the city’s traditional buckets of blood — Triple O’s, the Waltham Tavern, the Nite Lite, the Celtic Tavern, the Marconi Club, etc. — has turned out anywhere near the vast number of ne’er-do-wells and criminals that have been spawned by the State House.

Consider this week. We start with ex-Rep. John Fresolo of Worcester. He resigned rather than have the Ethics Committee release a report on his per diem escapades. Fresolo hasn’t been arrested since 1996 — for allegedly beating his wife — and he beat that rap. He once had a lien put on the house of a fellow solon, state Rep. Paul Kujawski, who was himself once lugged after allegedly urinating on the boot of a state trooper.

I left a message at Fresolo’s home. When the phone didn’t ring, I knew it was him. Ditto the chairman of the Ethics Committee, state Rep. Marty Walsh.

Among Walsh’s predecessors as ethics chairman was one Steve Doran of Lexington. Doran was arrested this week by Boston police and charged with drug trafficking after allegedly receiving a package with more than 400 grams of methamphetamine. Inside his Dorchester apartment they found another 38 grams of meth and $10,000 in cash.

As an erstwhile reformer, Doran presided over the investigation of the late state Rep. Kevin “Money Fitz” Fitzgerald, who absconded with $200,000 from a bag lady. Money Fitz was the rep from Mission Hill, and one of his predecessors was Dave O’Connor, who retired in 1970 after being convicted of income-tax evasion.

That district, by the way, is part of the Second Suffolk Senate district, once represented by state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson, who now goes by the Bureau of Prison number 21757-038. Until March 2014, she’s living in the Club Fed at Danbury, Conn. She succeeded ex-state Sen. Royal Bolling, who also did a stretch in Danbury (income tax evasion). Bolling succeeded ex-state Sen. Bill Owens, who did a bit at MCI-Walpole for assault.

Meanwhile, in Lawrence, the city clerk was under arrest yesterday for OUI, and a former aide to the mayor is being investigated for missing revenues at a municipal parking garage. That aide used to work on Beacon Hill for the oft-investigated, never-indicted mayor, Willie Lantigua, when he was a state rep. Lantigua won his seat by defeating state Rep. Jose Santiago, who was arrested in January for violating a restraining order.

Another of ex-Rep. Lantigua’s aides is under indictment — Lenny Degnan, whose father-in-law is Nick Rizzo, who did a federal stretch in the 1990s for looting U.S. Sen. Paul Tsongas’ presidential campaign account.

Did I mention that every single one of the above hacks is or was a Democrat?

Sun column ping

Excuses, excuses
Senators full of reasons why EBT reform won’t work
Sunday, May 26, 2013 By: Howie Carr, Boston Herald

They always have an excuse, the State House hacks do, for why their beloved welfare recipients are behaving badly. It’s never the layabouts’ fault, of course. And if you suggest doing anything to reduce the waste, fraud and abuse, well, there’s always a reason the reform won’t work — much like the welfare recipients themselves.

This week the state Senate punted yet again on doing anything about the out-of-control EBT-card program, you know, the one that kept the Tsarnaev brothers in gunpowder and pressure cookers.

During the annual budget debate, Sen. Robert Hedlund (R-Weymouth) proposed putting photographs on the EBT cards to perhaps slow the trafficking in them. Do you realize, he said, the gimme girls and guys “lose” 15,000 cards a year? The state’s motorists don’t misplace that many driver’s licenses in a year.

“We know they are sold,” Hedlund said, “passed along.”

The enablers used to say that the cost of photo IDs was exorbitant — $7 per EBT card. Now they have a new excuse, right Sen. Jennifer Flanagan?

“There are many self-checkout lanes,” said the Democrat from Leominster. “People can’t see what you’re swiping.”

What a compelling argument. Hedlund’s photo-ID amendment went down, 30-8. The eight included all four GOP solons and four of the 36 Senate Democrats.

Next Hedlund offered an amendment to require applicants for public housing to provide Social Security numbers — in other words, to prove that they are U.S. citizens.

Sen. Michael Barrett (D-Wherever He’s Living This Year) stood up and mentioned the so-called refugees — “people who have a legitimate fear of death from the countries from which they sought to emigrate.”

You know, like the Tsarnaevs. They were so terrified of returning to Russia that sometimes they only vacationed in the homeland for a mere six months.

The citizenship amendment went down 31-7. Somewhere in Cambridge, the next bunch of foreign terrorists breathed a sigh of relief and headed off to buy some more nails and beer.

Hedlund tried to put in another amendment, but he knew he was a beaten man. He mentioned the recent $30 million in overpayments on EBT cards, but nobody was listening, because nobody cares.

“It was said many times that I was too harsh,” he said. “I say if you’re receiving benefits, you have to take responsibility.”

Watch it senator. When you suggest the non-working classes take responsibility, you’re veering perilously close to what the Democrats call hate speech.

“We’re trying to reduce access to cash, because that’s a problem.”

Isn’t it enough that the newcomers to our land, the undocumented Democrats, can no longer use their EBT cards at strip clubs, liquor stores and tattoo parlors? Now they have to walk across the street to an ATM to get the cash for all of those necessities of life. Haven’t they suffered enough?

“I heard the word ‘punish,’ ” Hedlund said. “Nobody is getting punished.”

Only the taxpayers. The welfare department — the Department of Terrorist Assistance — is dummying up. One of Speedbump’s Chechen buddies was shot to death this week in Orlando by the FBI.

Like his pal Speedbump, this bum was a foreigner, never worked — how could he not have had an EBT card from Massachusetts?

I asked the DTA if he was on the dole. After five or six calls, they sent me an email:

“All questions about this case should be directed to the FBI.”

But it’s not just Massachusetts that’s throwing out the red carpet for the leisure class. Anthony Weiner, the noted Congressional Tweeting perv, is running for mayor of New York.

Weiner’s got a 64-point platform, and number 12 is “Eliminate Barriers to SNAP (Food Stamps).” I didn’t know there were any barriers.

Number 13 is “Enlist Our Kids to Teach Their Parents About Food Stamps.”

The local public school, he said, “is the ideal place to transmit information to (the kids’) parents … The Department of Education should be stuffing the backpacks of kids with information … to help parents apply for SNAP.”

From the Declaration of Independence to the Declaration of Dependence. We’ve come a long way in 237 years.

Wed. column ping

Carr: State audit gives new meaning to the term deadbeat
Wednesday, May 29, 2013 By: Howie Carr

There is life after death — at least if you have a Massachusetts EBT card.

In fact, sometimes life doesn’t begin until after death, if you define the beginning of life as getting your first EBT card.

According to the state auditor’s report on welfare abuse released yesterday, they found at least 42 loafers “whose benefits actually began after the recipients’ dates of death.”

This gives new meaning to the term “deadbeats.”

In all, the state auditors found 1,164 deceased persons who had collected a total of $2.39 million. I’ve heard of a kiss in the mail, but this is more like necrophilia. You know that movie, “The Sixth Sense,” where the little kid keeps saying, “I see dead people”?

I see dead Democrats.

Odd timing for this audit, though — just a few days after the Legislature deep-sixed welfare reform for yet another year.

The report certainly shows the lengths the layabouts will go to rather than actually get a job. Not that they’re exactly matching wits with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The Mounties always get their man. The DTA — the Department of Terrorist Assistance — never gets their man. And that’s the way they like it.

Some “deadbeats” are collecting under more than one Social Security number. Others are sharing a single number. Another thing the DTA doesn’t check on — those “self-reported Social Security numbers.” The synonym for “self-reported” is “made up.”

But DTA staffers wouldn’t think of ever going after any of their, uh, clients. Professional courtesy and all that. According to the state auditor, 30,000 blank EBT cards have gone missing (the synonym for which is “been stolen”). Then there are all the “lost” EBT cards. Last week, the state Senate voted down an amendment to put photo IDs on the EBT cards. Almost 10,000 members of the non-working classes have received at least 10 replacement cards since 2006. One forgetful fellow “lost” 127 cards.

The vote not to even try to end this abuse was 30-8.

How about the welfare recipients’ vacations? Can you guess what the No. 1 destination in Florida was? You got it: Orlando. In Nevada? Las Vegas, of course. Do you know what the No. 1 tourist attraction is in South Carolina? That’s right, Myrtle Beach. Damn, you’re good.

You know how the “advocates” are always saying these cards are mostly used to buy food? Then why are the top 10 outlets for EBT card use all banks — you know, banks with ATM machines? And why do so many of the alleged “food transactions” end in even dollars?

Yesterday the TV stations decided they couldn’t avoid mentioning the EBT scandal anymore. Some of them actually played it up big — complete with chyrons reading “BREAKING NEWS.”

Breaking news? Breaking to whom? Maybe to the deadbeats’ greatest friend, Gov. Deval Patrick. I’m sure he’ll correct everyone this morning. This isn’t breaking news, these are just … anecdotes.

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