Free Republic

Dan Grabauskas has to be one of the luckiest men on the planet. Grabauskas, a Republican who was appointed MBTA general manager by then-Gov. Mitt Romney in 2005, was fired by Deval Patrick, a Democrat, on politically trumped-up charges when Patrick became governor in 2009. That firing paved the way for Patrick to take over the MBTA and eventually hire the snowstorm-challenged Beverly Scott, who resigned last week following the crippling of MBTA rail, subway and bus service.

We've got to stop people from Massachusetts running for president. Because every time they do, they lose. It is getting embarrassing, and it is giving the state a bad name -- like loser capital of the world. What is it with this place? How is it that our professional sports teams (except today's Boston Celtics) win while all our professional politicians lose? The list of Massachusetts failed presidential candidates is long, and getting longer. It includes Massachusetts governors, former governors, U.S. senators, former U.S. senators, and everybody else in the Bay State who now thinks -- with good reason --...

Massachusetts does not need a climatologist; it needs a psychiatrist. That is what should be part of Gov. Deval Patrick's last televised State of the State speech that he will deliver tonight before a joint session of the Legislature. The governor, as part of his proposed $52 million boondoggle of a program to help cities and towns fight climate change -- which used to be called global warming -- is calling for the hiring of a $100,000-a-year climatologist to tell us which way the wind is blowing.

Is Gov. Deval Patrick serious? He doesn't know the motivation of the terrorists? On Sunday he went on "Face the Nation," and host Bob Schieffer asked him if he had "any clearer idea" of why the "two young men" did it. "Not yet, Bob," Deval began, more than 48 hours after the shootout. "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." Two fellows indeed. He'd rather tell a whopper on national...

WORCESTER - Republican Christy Mihos was muscled out of the GOP primary today as gubernatorial candidate Charles D. Baker took 89 percent of the delegate vote, leaving Mihos with just 11 percent, according to unofficial estimates. A buoyant Baker took the stage along with his family and running mate Sen. Richard Tisei. “We have a job to do and that job starts today,” Baker said. “And it’s to take our state back from the Beacon Hill insiders and status quo-ers and non-reformers and give the people of Massachusetts the state government they deserve.” Mihos needed just 15 percent of the...

A fuming Gov. Deval Patrick is taking on University of Massachusetts officials who now say they must allow a convicted terror bomber to speak on campus because of “academic freedom” - even after angry cops thought the event had been stopped. “Gov. Patrick is outraged and extremely disappointed at reports that the University of Massachusetts has again extended a speaking invitation to Raymond Luc Levasseur,” said Patrick spokesman Joe Landolfi. The governor last night called on UMass brass to “review” the abrupt about-face. Levasseur, now under federal parole in a Maine halfway house, was the radical leader of United Freedom...

The Massachusetts House and Senate have given final approval to a bill that would allow Democratic Governor Deval Patrick to appoint an interim US senator to take the seat left vacant by the death of the legendary liberal Edward M. Kennedy. The bill now heads to the desk of the governor, who plans to sign it and could name an appointee as early as Thursday or Friday. The bill was enacted by the House, 95-59, and by the Senate, 24-16, after only brief speeches by lawmakers. Lawmakers did not pass, however, an emergency preamble to the law, meaning that the...

GOAL Requests Massachusetts Attorney General to Intervene in Illegal Licensing Activities On Monday, March 3, 2008 Gun Owners' Action League took the next step in our attempt to hold the state accountable for its firearm licensing system. As our members know, GOAL has been seeking the Patrick's administration's assistance in enforcing the firearm licensing laws as they pertain to the illegal actions of local licensing agents. Unfortunately this administration has expressed little interest in protecting the civil rights of lawful citizens. GOAL has also sought to rectify the problems by asking the Massachusetts Inspector General's Office to investigate these illegal...

From about 1989 to 1992 we pretty much figured that we had it made. The Iron Curtain fell, peace was breaking out all over. Francis Fukiyama rather unilaterally claimed victory for Liberal Democracy in his instant classic The End of History and the Last Man. His primary thesis went as follows. "What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the...