Posted on 04/15/2012 4:32:44 AM PDT by raccoonradio
Howie thread for the week starting with his Sunday Herald column
Sunday column ping
Hack out of water fights for survival
By Howie Carr | Sunday, April 15, 2012 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
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Boston hacks are kinda like coyotes. There are way too many of them, so they’re always stealthily expanding their range, moving into new territory, butting up against the local wildlife when they’re not knocking over trash cans or going out on disability.
Occasionally, though, the local yokels push back, and this is where we pick up the cautionary tale of Robert E. Powers, a 58-year-old Hyde Park hack who is, or was, the $110,000-a-year clerk of the Barnstable District Court. Now he’s been reassigned by the SJC to Taunton for “unpredictable, disrespectful and sometimes aggressive conduct as clerk magistrate.”
Since when is this against the rules?
Powers was appointed clerk at the end of 2006 by outgoing Gov. Mitt Romney, and it surely had nothing to do with his $500 contribution to the failed campaign of Mitt’s lieutenant governor, Muffy Healey.
Powers is basically a Boston street hack. He didn’t graduate law school until he was 38. His other contributions went to Mumbles Menino, state Sen. Jack Hart of Southie, Richie Iannella and Powers’ neighbor, City Council President Steve Murphy.
Powers didn’t fit on the Cape. He’s a non-native — a “wash-ashore,” as they say. The local hacks had their own guy lined up — the son of a judge, already in the office.
The Cape Cod Times even noted Powers’ “Boston accent.” The natives still fondly recall their all-time favorite clerk, one Omar Chartrand. Now there was a well-qualified clerk — Omar was Frank Sargent’s pharmacist.
Soon Powers found himself jammed up with an obscure agency known as the Committee on Professional Responsibility for Clerks of Court. The committee just held more than a week of hearings in Barnstable on Powers’ behavior, presided over by a retired judge. They finally wrapped up last week, with a decision expected soon.
Powers made it easy for his Cape foes, too easy. A female employee of his named Nunez testified that “he kept screaming, ‘Do you understand English?’ ” He perpetually showed up late for work — shocking.
A Cape lawyer testified that when he spoke on behalf of his 17-year-old son who’d been arrested for driving with a suspended license, he told Powers how difficult it had been to control his son since the death of the boy’s mother.
The lawyer said Powers called him a coward for using such an excuse.
The hearings were a veritable who’s who of the judicial hackerama. Testifying against Powers was District Court Chief Justice Lynda Connolly, a Boston hack herself. She’s the wife of former Secretary of State Mike Connolly, whose sister Paula Connolly Connolly (you read that right) is married to former Boston city councilor Jim Connolly (no relation), who used to be Gov. Paul Cellucci’s money guy. And Lynda’s son John is now a Boston city councilor.
Oh yeah, and Lynda went to law school with the presiding justice of the Barnstable District Court. And she and Mike have a summer house down in Falmouth. The whole thing is beyond incestuous.
Powers produced his own hack judicial witness, Judge John Julian, whose brother is Jim Julian, one-time consigliere to Senate president Billy Bulger. Jim remains on the UMass payroll for $325,238 a year, while his brother struggles by on a mere $129,694. Judge Julian was appointed by yet another Bulger stooge named Jane Swift.
It was all just one big nationwide search.
The charges against him may not amount to all that much, but Powers is still on the ropes. The fix appears in, more than somewhat.
You know, there are judicial systems more rotten to the core than this one we’re afflicted with here in Massachusetts. There have to be.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1061124672
Wed column ping. I tried to post this in about 3 or 4 am
but Herald website wasn’t co-operating
Simple question’s too taxing for Granny’s camp
By Howie Carr | Wednesday, April 18, 2012 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Photo
Photo by Patrick Whittemore
Come clean, Granny Warren — you’re a typical carpetbagging moonbat, screaming for higher taxes on working people. But when it comes time for you to actually pay your fair share — hey, come back here Granny!
On Monday, Granny, who owns stocks worth $15 million and a $3 million mansion in Cambridge, “wouldn’t say if she voluntarily paid a higher state income tax,” according to the Boring Broadsheet.
You know how it works here in Massachusetts. If you want to put your money where your liberal mouth is, all you have to do is check Box 22 on the state income tax form and then you can pay at the old, higher 5.85 percent rate.
It’s for the children, don’t you know. And the heroin dealers of Roxbury who need bail money.
According to the DOR, as of yesterday 2.78 million Massachusetts residents had filed 2011 tax returns, and exactly 773 opted to pay at the higher rate. Altogether the 773 paid an extra $60,181, which means their average income was approximately $15,000.
I called the Warren campaign yesterday for some clarification. Did she or did she not pay at the higher rate? Hours later, they sent back a statement that began, “Scott Brown takes care of oil companies ...” Thanks for clearing that up, Granny. The answer is no.
Just the other day, some of the Beautiful People of Massachusetts went down to D.C. to push for the Buffett Rule. These moonbats modestly call themselves “Patriotic Millionaires.” Yesterday, I tried to find out how many Patriotic Millionaires had actually done anything other than flap their jaws about “tax fairness.”
Left a voicemail message for Philippe Villers. Not returned. Sent an email to an organization where Paul Egerman is a director. No response. Couldn’t get an address for Arnold Hiatt, whom Wikipedia describes as a “voice calling for money to get out of politics,” which must be why he contributed a mere $500,000 to the Democratic National Committee in 1996.
Finally, I got through to Patriotic Millionaire Robert S. Bowditch Jr. I explained how he could check Box 22 and pay more for the most vulnerable members of society, etc.
“I don’t know about this provision you’re talking about.”
I interpret that to mean he’s not one of the 773 who actually paid higher taxes.
“My answer is that it does no good,” Bowditch said. “Taxes are not a charitable donation. It’s a decision you make collectively.”
Yeah, but you went to Washington to push for higher taxes and yet you won’t pay them yourself voluntarily. You talk the talk, why not walk the walk?
“I am perfectly willing to walk the walk if everyone else does.”
By the way, Bowditch has given $2,500 to Granny Warren. They agree on so many things — everybody should pay more taxes, except them.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1061125290
Anyone know if “Patriotic Millionaire” Robert S. Bowditch Jr is a descendant of Nathan Bowditch?
re: Bowditch, don’t know.
to all Howie just passed along that Dick Clark has died of a heart attack (WGAN facebook has it too) and he prob was in
deathpool
good to know! now to all, special Thu column ping
If they quack like hacks ...
By Howie Carr | Thursday, April 19, 2012 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Nonprofits are the new hackerama.
These greed-crazed layabouts are utterly out of control. And they’re invisible.
Consider this week’s poster boy for nonprofit abuse - -— Jack Millerick, who makes over $200,000 running an agency in Charlestown nobody ever heard of, the Life Focus Center.
Then there’s Jack’s wife, Karyn — $85,000 a year at Life Focus Center. And his daughter, Kaitlyn, fresh out of law school, is going to be a “legal advocate” at, you guessed it, the Life Focus Center. Millerick even paid his brother-in-law ... under the table, for maintenance services, wink wink, nudge nudge.
Jack O’Brien, the disgraced former commissioner of probation, must be wondering where he went wrong. All he did was get his wife and daughter jobs with then-Treasurer Tim Cahill. But he had to run a fundraiser for Tim first, and now both have been indicted.
And neither O’Brien nor Cahill ever made close to 200 large a year.
But it’s not just the phony-baloney Life Focus Center. It’s the Greenway Conservancy and its cadre of six-figure do-nothings. It’s Blue Cross/Blue Shield with its $11 million payout to a failed executive director from a protected class who couldn’t manage a one-car funeral.
The difference between nonprofits and the hackerama is that nobody at a nonprofit ever has to run for reelection. You can’t vote out their boards of directors. You have to wait for them to resign in humiliation, like the priest in Charlestown who had the wool pulled over his eyes by the Millerick crew. Beside taking care of his entire family, Millerick went on a wild six-figure spending spree with the nonprofit’s credit cards — fancy restaurants, N.H. liquor stores, Disney World stores. Then, while on vacation in Florida, he hired a pricey, fork-tongued PR firm to lie about his record. (They said he hadn’t had a raise since 2001.)
But nobody’s really keeping tabs, unless you think filing that annual report with Marsha Coakley’s Public Charities Bureau throws the fear of God into these professional leeches. So everybody can take care of their own. Why did they all apply for jobs at the Life Focus Center?
They heard there was no work.
Deputy director Kevin O’Halloran paid his brother-in-law under the table for, you guessed it, maintenance work. And after still another nationwide search, staff director Deborah Hughes’ husband was hired as a “stay-at-home” grant writer. Over three years he allegedly worked 25 hours a week and was paid $183,000 to obtain grants worth ... $9,000.
Jack O’Brien used to hang out with a crooked House speaker. Too bad he didn’t throw in with Jack Millerick. Now he might be going to Disney World instead of the slammer.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1061125545
Fri column ping
Gov, time to book these ‘anecdotes’
By Howie Carr | Friday, April 20, 2012 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Are you paying attention, Gov. Deval Patrick, wherever you are this morning? Another 32 EBT “anecdotes” arrested or cited yesterday and charged with welfare fraud.
You say the Herald is in “the business of making people angry,” so wasn’t it nice of the Boston police, the attorney general, the state auditor, the IRS and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to join in our jihad against your loyal constituents?
One Vietnamese immigrant store owner in Quincy was charged with $700,000 in welfare fraud.
The assistant attorney general called him a “serious flight risk” — what a racist thing to say, huh?
I know a few of these places they busted. Like the C Mart Supermarket on Washington Street. I always wondered why all those cars were lined up on Washington Street, waiting to get into the tiny parking lot. Now I know.
And the New Saigon Sandwich Shop — good, cheap sandwiches, but they’d never take a credit card. Now I understand. I was just using the wrong kind of plastic.
Just two weeks ago, state Auditor Suzanne Bump was in Deval denial, even dismissing this poverty-pimp crime wave with the governor’s own favorite word — “anecdotes.” Now she’s seen the light, or maybe the polls. She’s describing EBT fraud as “a trend that is literally sweeping across the nation.”
Of course, other states care enough about the taxpayers to crack down. Consider Florida. Before a layabout can get an EBT card there now, he has to pass a drug test — and he has to pay for the test himself. Call it, tough love. Call it, reducing the welfare rolls, very quickly.
Anecdotes? Here’s an anecdote I heard yesterday, Governor, from two people, including a cop in Lawrence. These two people have both seen workers from a Lawrence “nightclub” up at a big discount store in Salem, N.H., buying cases of Corona beer and paying for them with a Mass. EBT card.
The average layabout collects $450 a month on his card. And 20,000 cards are “lost” every month (and then replaced at no charge). Do the math — could be close to $9 million a month in fraud, just on those “lost” cards. Yet Deval’s appointees claim it’s too expensive to put the welfare recipient’s photo on the card.
But on the same day this local-state-federal welfare bust goes down, Deval was trying to jack up the annual licensing fee for vending machines from $3 to $20 to hire “vending machine inspectors”— or food cops — to make sure no kids are being exposed to fatty and salty snacks in schools. Glad you’ve got your priorities straight, Governor.
A mother with three kids from Lowell named Annette called me last night, distraught.
“I see people in the checkout line buying better food that me because I’m on a budget, and I can’t afford tenderloin like they can.” She paused. “And then they pull out the iPhone.”
Which you paid for too, Annette, one way or another.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1061125778
Looks like Romney's got some more people he can kinda like to fire... his gaffe's going to be a campaign slogan soon...
Howie was wondering why they had Caroline Kennedy there with Menino to throw out the first ball. Her great grandfather was Honey Fitz who did the same thing 100 yrs ago as mayor of
Boston.
Real reason:Red Sox owners are moooooooooooooooooonbats
“Real reason:Red Sox owners are moooooooooooooooooonbats”
Hey, a new position for the Sox; instead of a designated hitter they could have a Moonbatter...we could all chant “moonbatter, moonbatter...suwinnnnnnggggggg moonbatter!”
Or not.
https://twitter.com/#!/EricFehrn/status/193425740514078721
proof that there ARE real Patriots in Boston...
I've posted pictures before from the BostonDirtDogs.com site... look up Oct 2004 and Nov 2004. Werner, Epstein, and Henry at a Kerry campaign stop with Liveshot... Curt Schilling at a NH Bush campaign stop, holding up four fingers for "four more years" ("Everybody go out and vote and vote Bush", he said on Good Morning America)... Let's see:
Kerry in his LL Bean farm coat. Oh I could puke.
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