Posted on 03/21/2009 9:11:48 PM PDT by raccoonradio
Howie thread starting with his Sunday Herald column
Sunday column ping
‘Yes we can’ - we can ‘can’ Deval Patrick in ’10
By Howie Carr | Sunday, March 22, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Deval Patrick has become Michael Dukakis - shrimp wrapped in baloney.
That’s how we used to describe the Duke - and the description surely fits Deval. The only difference is, at least Pee Wee (another of our fond monikers) had that one first term where he was somewhat honorable, if clueless.
Deval has gone directly to Dukakis II - when he was lying down with dogs like Billy Bulger and getting up with more fleas than I have space to mention.
Deval has been drifting south in the polls for months, but he really jumped the shark when he appointed Sen. Marian Walsh to that $175,000 hack sinecure. Marian Walsh! He doesn’t even know how to reward the right hacks - ones who’ll back you up in an alley fight, or at least hold a sign for you. If they ever name a street after Marian, it’ll have to be a one-way.
Then, take Jim Aloisi - please.
Now Deval is reduced to talking ragtime. He was against the increase in the gas tax before he was for it. He was for the toll increase before he was against it. Dipping into the Turnpike reserves was a “shortsighted gimmick” . . . er, make that a great idea.
He gets rattled at his own press conferences, sticks his foot in his mouth and has to flee back to the Corner Office while leaving his befuddled flacks to clean up the mess. Oh what a tangled web we weave.
You know about Deval’s latest meltdown - when he dismissed the endless stream of hack stories in both newspapers as “trivial.” They’re a distraction - one of his, and Barack’s, new favorite words. He can’t be bothered with all those “trivial” stories when he has to deal with issues that are “meaningful.”
Trivial: stories about Deval’s hack hiring spree. Meaningful: doubling the gas tax to keep those six-figure jobs for campaign contributors and unemployed neighbors coming. Dukakis called them“good jobs at good wages.” Deval calls it “stimulus.”
Trivial: writing about no-show jobs at the State House. Meaningful: appointing a “blue-ribbon” ethics commission to have lunch and write a report that no one will read about how to stop the proliferation of no-show jobs at the State House.
Deval has the same blindspot as most of his supporters. Everything has always been handed to him, from his free rides at Harvard to his $1.35 million book contract. He has no idea what it’s like to be sweating a layoff or wondering how you’re going to deal with an unexpected expense, like, say, an extra $100 a month in tolls. There’s a bloodbath going on out here, and he’s as oblivious to it as Marie Antoinette.
So, Deval thinks these hack exposes are “trivial?” He ought to be asking himself why both papers are full of them, every day. It’s because the rank-and-file state workers are leaking like a sieve.
His own state workers have to put up with his insufferable Ivy League coatholders in their agencies. And judging from my correspondence, the people who actually work in state government now despise Deval as much as the guys in pickup trucks with the “Don’t Blame Me I Voted for Muffy” bumper stickers.
Like Macbeth, those Deval commands move only in command, nothing in love.
Can we can him in 2010?
Yes We Can.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1160208
???
The Boston Globe is ratting out its own party??
No, Howie writes for the Boston Herald. Big diff.
But he is right, that even the Globe has been having to write about Deval’s growing hackerama and no-show job holders.
You obviously didn’t read the quote I cited in my post.
Half an oops. I thought you were referring to the Howie Carr article itself, which is from the Herald, rather than the "both papers" phrase in your quote, which I missed.
This is when Howie really shines well.
I figure he will have enough of this when his youngest daughter graduates from high school
Wed. column ping
In hack musical chairs, no pol gets eliminated
By Howie Carr | Wednesday, March 25, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
It’s hack musical chairs - the new game on Beacon Hill. Just keep shuffling the deck, keep movin’ ’em around. And if there’s no new payroll to shift your coat-holders to, then just give ’em fancy new job titles, and then you can raise their salaries, too.
Consider Trellis Stepter, the Cambridge coat-holder who migrated from deputy secretary for governmental affairs at the Transportation Department to the Turnpike, where he is now “manager of special projects” for $90,000 - six grand more than he made in his old job.
As soon as he got his new hack job, Trellis was replaced by another Cambridge hack, City Councilor Brian Murphy, a “biking advocate” with a beard. It was a nationwide search, and Murphy is now making $110,000 working for Gov. Free-fall Deval.
Bring on Carol Aloisi, sister of Transportation Secretary Jim Aloisi, employer of the above-mentioned Stepter and Murphy. She too needed a job. State Rep. Rachel Kaprielian had just quit to become registrar of motor vehicles, so as you know they moved Carol into Kaprielian’s abandoned office as “chief of staff” to someone who was no longer there. For $60,000.
Kaprielian’s flack is Ann Dufresne, former TV newsgal, who’d previously worked for Senate President Bob Travaglini. At least one other Trav coat-holder went to work for Free-fall. Ann is now making $82,400 at the Registry.
Free-fall’s administration is a boom for ex-reporters, especially from the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. There’s one of them at the Highway Department, and one went first to the Turnpike and then to the DOR, replacing still another ex-Telegram scribe who moved back to a (public-sector) job in Worcester.
The Pike has replaced the ex-Telegram reporter with a hack named Mac from the Globe.
I know, it’s a budget crisis out there - billion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see.
No pay raises for anybody unless they get new titles. Just received a missive from a local state community college where all the president’s pals have just gotten fancy new titles - and pay hikes.
At this school, the “assistant to the president,” i.e., the secretary, just became the “executive assistant to the president.” That one word “executive” raised her pay from $57,960 to $70,000.
The dean of academic affairs & distance learning was making $80,000. The new “assistant vice president for academic affairs,” who is the same person as the dean, is good for $110,000.
You see how it works? Dean - good job. Vice president - better job. Just ask the “assistant vice president for academic affairs” - a $100,000 job, as opposed to “dean of academic affairs & distance learning,” which was worth $80,000. Recession? What recession?
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1160867
Fri column ping
Are we being punked, Deval?
By Howie Carr | Friday, March 27, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
The hack du jour is Steve Crosby, a career coatholder currently collecting $172,000 a year at the public trough.
I’ve been keeping an eye on this 63-year-old hack’s hack since 2001, when he attended some thumb-sucking conference and said:
“The Howie Carrs of the world, in my view, should go to jail.”
Because, you see, nobody should write anything bad about payroll patriots like, well, Steve Crosby.
“There is a predisposition that - if you’re in this business, you’re a slimeball.”
God forbid somebody should criticize the likes of, say, Sen. Marian Walsh. She’s a fine person, probably would have become a nun, except she couldn’t handle the vow of poverty.
I mention Crosby today only because he has just been handed yet another big assignment. Gov. Free-fall Deval Patrick has asked him to conduct a review of the salaries and benefits at those quasi-public authorities like Massport and the Pike, and all the alphabet-soup acronym agencies like MHEFA.
Surely, this is a gag, an early April Fools’ Day joke. How else can you explain Deval ordering up a review of the hackerama from a hack who has publicly opined that anyone who attempts to ferret out waste, fraud and abuse in the public sector should be locked up?
I’m sure in his probe Crosby will leave no stone unturned, except of course the ones that Sen. Walsh, the Aloisi siblings, Tom Kinton and all the rest are hiding under.
Crosby is perfect for this job. See, he’s a Republican - a house Republican. Think David Gergen, only smarmier. Crosby is so desperate to please his Democrat masters that sometimes he goes overboard. Last year, they put him on another one of their blue-ribbon commissions, to grease the skids for some pay raises for hack judges and their political patrons.
The chairman of that panel was Paul Guzzi, the $429,600-a-year head of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce. Guzzi was most recently seen demanding an even higher increase in the gas tax than Deval wants - 25 cents. Providing cover, you might say.
Anyway, last year Guzzi and Crosby suggested jacking up the salaries of the speaker and the Senate president to $160,000 - a 70 percent increase. Even Sal DiMasi was embarrassed.
Crosby’s current job is “dean” of the John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies at UMass, whatever that is. Crosby is basically serving time to get himself a state pension. See, Crosby cashed out his 2000-03 contributions that he made when he was working for Jane Swift. He’s been chowing down at UMass since June 2006, but he still needs another five-plus years, and he’ll have to buy back those three earlier years.
So by God he’s got to keep this job - his kiss in the mail is at stake. You couldn’t pry him out of the trough with the Jaws of Life. And so he’ll provide them the report they need - that our public servants in the public authorities are woefully underpaid.
Hey, Deval, are you sure this isn’t an April Fools’ joke?
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1161461
RIP Larry Glick
yup, saw online last night that Steve Leveille had mentioned it online and was taking calls about The Commander...
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