Howie Carr thread week of Nov. 25, 2012

Howie Carr thread for the week starting with his Sunday Boston Herald column, "Moonbats' Remorse".

Excerpt: "as strange as it seems, a plurality of Obama voters probably have real jobs, some even in the Dreaded Private Sector. Man, are they in dire straits. Take the instructors at Community College of Allegheny County in Pittsburgh. Their hours are being cut back so the college can get around Obamacare. All you teachers, hope you enjoy being adjunct professors, because you ain’t getting tenure anytime soon. Wonder who they all voted for on Nov. 6?"

Sun column ping

Moonbats’ remorse
For shafted Obama voters, repenting comes early
By Howie Carr | Sunday, November 25, 2012 |
http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists

Sin in haste, repent at leisure.

One of the few silver linings in the dark cloud of Obama’s re-election is that millions of moonbats and Beautiful People who voted this month to continue our long national nightmare are now discovering, much to their chagrin, that they’re as screwed as all the “bitter clingers” who still go to church on Sunday.

Not that it was any big secret, but it’s asking an awful lot of the dumbed-down modern electorate to pay attention to its own best interests.

Of course tens of millions of Obama’s votes came from the people he likes to describe as “working families,” most of whom aren’t families and almost none of whom have worked since Lyndon Johnson. This is the freebies-for-freeloaders crowd. Think the Obamaphone woman in Cleveland.

Mitt Romney used to say they lived in “Kennedy country.” Then he called them the 47 percent. Now he says they like “gifts.”

I know, the liberals tut-tut that the gimme girls ’n’ guys pay taxes too — the sales tax, mainly, on cigarettes and their 40-ouncers. Their theme song is from “West Side Story”: “America,” as in “Everything free in America.”

But as strange as it seems, a plurality of Obama voters probably have real jobs, some even in the Dreaded Private Sector. Man, are they in dire straits.

Take the instructors at Community College of Allegheny County in Pittsburgh.

Their hours are being cut back so the college can get around Obamacare. All you teachers, hope you enjoy being adjunct professors, because you ain’t getting tenure anytime soon. Wonder who they all voted for on Nov. 6?

One story had a quote from a CCAC English instructor who had a “vague hope” that his health care insurance costs would be going down under Obamacare.

Now, not only is he not going to be eligible for full insurance, he’s taking a $600 a month pay cut because of his reduced hours.

I have a “vague” feeling he’s not too happy.

Fortunately, all the “womyn’s studies” instructors at CCAC can pick up their insurance by getting jobs at, say, Olive Garden. But wait, I forgot — many fast-food and supermarket chains are also cutting back to work weeks of 29 A hours maximum.

(Employers have to provide health insurance to anyone who works at least 30 hours.)

“Part time is the new full time,” Michelle Malkin wrote. Now the limousine liberals in Congress are clamoring that they may have to “revisit” Obamacare, to stop all these evil corporations (and nonprofits) from switching everybody from employee to contractor. Which just means that U.S. companies will stop hiring, period. Except for the manufacturers, who’ll just outsource even more of their production to China.

Just ask Jeffrey Immelt, the boss of GE, who at press conferences of the White House “Jobs Council” plays Ed McMahon to Obama’s Johnny Carson.

Remember when a 4 percent unemployment rate was a “jobless recovery?” Those were the good old days.

But letting Obama flush the economy down the toilet was worth it, wasn’t it, to screw all those millionaires and billionaires.

You know, like George Lucas. Only thing is, he just sold his Star Wars studio to Disney for $4.05 billion to beat the Jan. 1 tax Armageddon. By some accounts, Han Solo’s real father will be saving more than $200 million.

See, the capital gains tax rate is going from 15 to 20 percent. Plus the gift-tax exemption drops from $5 million to $1 million. Not to mention the Democrats are jacking up the top marginal income-tax rate from 35 to 39.6 percent.

I know, George Lucas claims he’s giving most of this windfall to charity. Does that mean he thinks he can spend his money more wisely than Dear Leader and Harry Reid can spend his money?

Who do you suppose George Lucas voted for Nov. 6?

Sadly, much of Lucas’ obscene profits, to coin a phrase, come in the form of Disney stock. I wonder how he plans to beat Obama’s dividend tax increase, from 15 percent to 39 percent starting Jan. 1, plus the 3.8 percent Obamacare surtax on high-income earners.

These Hollywood types are like Elizabeth Warren and all the rest of the rich phonies in Massachusetts who refuse to check the box on their state income tax forms to voluntarily pay at the higher 5.85 percent tax rate. They want to soak you, but when it comes to them ponying up, well, as the late Joe Early once said, “They ran like rats!”

How about the Walton family, the owners of Wal-Mart.

Their scheme is to pay out this quarter’s dividends on Dec. 27 instead of Jan. 2. That’ll save ’em a cool $180 million. The rich get richer and the poor get ... part-time jobs.

Have you seen the bumper sticker that features the smiling face of George W. Bush?

“Do you miss me yet?” he asks.

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1061177110

wed column ping

Finneran will sing like a canary
By Howie Carr | Wednesday, November 28, 2012 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Photo
Photo by Christopher Evans

You’re Felon Finneran, the disgraced ex-speaker of the House, and you’ve apparently been immunized to testify in the Probation Department scandal.

You’ll be just fine, that’s what you’re telling your payroll-patriot pals.

All you have to do is answer truthfully any questions the grand jury asks you. OK, so you’ve had a problem or two with that in the past, but back then, it was appeals court judges you were lying to, not 23 good men and true.

You look at it this way: You’re just following in the tiny footsteps of Billy Bulger. And at least you’re not going to have to testify on national television, with that wiseguy sitting behind you rolling his eyes and making faces.

Oh sure, some of your old Beacon Hill lackeys, maybe even a guy or two you went to high school with, might end up in the jackpot once you raise your right hand, but at this late date, at age 62, what exactly were you supposed to do?

You’ve already lost your state pension.
And your ticket to practice law.

And your $400,000-a-year lobbying job.

And your radio show.

What would your hero, Winston Churchill, do? He once said there is nothing so exhilarating as being shot at and surviving. Although being indicted, and pleading guilty, and not doing any time probably comes close.

But the feds aren’t going to give you a second base on balls. Sure you could be a stand-up guy, but stand-up guys with one felony already on their rap sheets generally do 45-52 months.

And you sure as heck aren’t going to take them on. Sal DiMasi tried that. Enough said.

When the SJC commissioned its kangaroo court “investigation” two years ago, you refused to talk to Paul Ware. But now the word is you’ve gotten an offer you can’t refuse.

You’re Felon Finneran, and you feel sorry for Jack O’Brien, your vassal, the bumkisser you installed to run the Probation Department as your own personal hackerama after you muscled in on the judges a decade ago. But if you could still talk to Obie, you’d tell him, the feds don’t care about you. They’re interested in Mr. Fat — er, Mr. Big. And maybe the woman across the hall who kinda looks like Michelle Kosilek.

You’re Felon Finneran, and the number you keep hearing is five, and no, it’s not the Fifth Amendment. It’s how many solons may be getting target letters in the next round of indictments.

You’re Felon Finneran, and boy, could you use a handful of Advils right about now. But not as much as some of the people you may soon be ratting out.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com

Fri column ping

Stupid is, as Tim Cahill does
By Howie Carr | Friday, November 30, 2012 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists

Photo by Angela Rowlings
If the charge were stupidity, former Treasurer Tim Cahill would have already been found guilty.

But being a boob isn’t against the law.

The problem is, Tim is in fact guilty of one thing: He got Deval Patrick re-elected in 2010. Oh sure, maybe Deval would have been won a second term anyway, but Cahill made it way too easy for him.

In the end, remember, Patrick only got 49 percent of the vote.

Tim no doubt thinks he’s been punished enough without these trumped-up charges that could send him to prison. And he seems to have learned a lot, but unfortunately for all of us, he learned it too late.

Talking yesterday about the advice his coatholders gave him as he tried to resuscitate his doomed campaign, he said: “It’s not always easy to get an honest answer when you ask someone for an opinion. They say yes. They laugh at your jokes.”

Speaking of jokes, that’s what his campaign was. I remember telling him repeatedly in 2010 that he was out of his mind to run for governor. Back in 2002, he had somehow lucked into the second best job in state government. He could have been treasurer forever, like Bob Crane.

For eight years, Cahill got to shake down Wall Street (in a legal sense, of course) for millions of dollars in campaign funds. At least one of his daughters went to Harvard. Everybody he knew in Quincy got a job either at the Treasury (good) or at the Lottery (better — Braintree is closer to Quincy, and they have a union that means that after six months, you’re at the public trough for life).

But Tim had to run for governor, as an independent. It reminded me of the scene in “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” where Hunter S. Thompson and his attorney are listening to John Lennon on the radio singing his idiotic “Power to the People Right On” song.

“That poor fool should have stayed where he was,” the attorney says. “Punks like that just get in the way when they try to be serious.”

Tim Cahill was nothing more than a straw for Deval Patrick. Maybe he didn’t know he was a straw, but the best straw is always the one who doesn’t even know he’s a straw. In the debates, Deval used Cahill as a shield to deflect attacks from the real opposition candidate, Charlie Baker. It was a rerun of 2006, with Cahill in the role of Christy Mihos. By September, Cahill told the jury yesterday, he knew that winning “would take a miracle. Someone would have to drop out or get caught doing something.”

And guess who got caught. And now Tim Cahill is being railroaded. But it’s hard to feel much sympathy for a boob who got an even bigger boob re-elected.

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1061178341

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