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Howie Carr thread for Jan. 16-31, 2013
howiecarr.us ^ | 1/16/13 | raccoonradio

Posted on 01/16/2013 7:54:46 AM PST by raccoonradio

Howie Carr Show thread for the second half of January starting with his Boston Herald column, "‘Forward’? You’ve been forewarned "

Excerpt: "They’re planning to HAMMER the middle class! That’s all you need to know about this evening’s State of the State speech. Here you have the working population of Massachusetts still reeling from the 2 percent pay cut imposed by Barack Obama earlier this month, and now comes Gov. Deval Patrick’s tax-crazed scheme, 'The Way Forward'.""


TOPICS: Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: devalpatrick; howiecarr; talkradio
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1 posted on 01/16/2013 7:54:54 AM PST by raccoonradio
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To: raccoonradio; Andonius_99; Andy'smom; Antique Gal; Big Guy and Rusty 99; bitt; Barset; ...
Wed column ping

‘Forward’? You’ve been forewarned

by Howie Carr/Boston Herald 1/16/2013

They’re planning to HAMMER the middle class!

That’s all you need to know about this evening’s State of the State speech.

Here you have the working population of Massachusetts still reeling from the 2 percent pay cut imposed by Barack Obama earlier this month, and now comes Gov. Deval Patrick’s tax-crazed scheme, “The Way Forward.”

Beware that word “Forward.” It is to the 21st century what “investment in the future” and “for the children” were to the 20th. A euphemism for higher taxes.

If they were truthful, they’d hang a big banner behind Deval as he speaks in the House chambers: “From the Wonderful Folks Who Brought You the Big Dig ...”

The timing is perfect. Deval is a lame duck, ditto the Senate president. The House speaker is a semi-lame duck, plus he’s got the Probation indictments to worry about. What better time than to rob the bank?

Take the money and run. You know the old saying on Beacon Hill. Lame duck is their favorite dish.

Patrick says he won’t reveal until tonight which taxes he wants to raise. I’ll go out on a limb and say ... all of them. This is the oldest trick in the hack playbook. The lame-duck governor (or mayor) steps up and waves his finger and says, “I’m going to tax you people back to the Stone Age.”

Then some clear-headed, white hat-wearing solons step up and say, “Never fear. We’ll save you. The real plan is only to tax you back to the Bronze Age.”

And the taxpayers are supposed to swoon in gratitude, and think to themselves, what a lucky break we’re getting, they’re only jacking up the gas tax from 21 cents to 51 cents a gallon.

The sales tax is only going up from 6.25 percent to 7.75 percent.

And the income tax will be jacked up from 5.25 percent to 5.66 percent.

But of course all this dough disappearing from your pocket is going for worthy causes. Like the “prevailing wage” construction costs that made the Big Dig such a bargain. The work will be done very expeditiously, too. Remember the unofficial state motto: “Don’t Kill the Job.”

And let’s look at some of these vital projects. My favorite is the Boston-to-New Bedford/Fall River commuter rail line. That’ll run $1.8 billion, they’re saying now, which probably means at least $5 billion when all is said and done.

I have a counterproposal. Why doesn’t the Commonwealth just buy a fleet of stretch limousines and assign one, complete with driver, to each of the 30-40 commuters who would otherwise be taking this marvelous new train back and forth from Bristol County to Boston every day.

You could give these people limo rides — free — for eternity, and the cost would be but a tiny fraction of the cost of this new rail system.

The Boston Globe has naturally been cheerleading for this giant welfare-state boondoggle. They’ve been prominently featuring quotes from the head of the Boston Foundation: “This is really the moment to do something significant.”

This is the same Boston Foundation that hires “street workers” to fight gang violence. One of their “street workers” was busted Saturday morning after police stopped his car and allegedly found a two-shot derringer, cocaine and a hooker whom he claimed he was giving a ride home.

And now they tell us they know how to spend billions upon billions of dollars.

What could possibly go wrong?

2 posted on 01/16/2013 7:59:28 AM PST by raccoonradio
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To: raccoonradio; Andonius_99; Andy'smom; Antique Gal; Big Guy and Rusty 99; bitt; Barset; ...

tweet via @bostonradio
>>For ‘toxic talk’ lovers, former NewsTalk 96.9 afternooner Michael Graham is filling in for Howie Carr on 680 from 3 to 7pm tomorrow(1/17).

Note that Graham has done fill ins for the 10p-1a slot on Philly’s Big Talker WPHT 1210 the past
couple nights. The Natural Truth is that it’ll be Graham
not McPhee this time around (not sure why HC is off—
birthday? was pretty sure he was born on Jan 17)


3 posted on 01/16/2013 8:05:18 AM PST by raccoonradio
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To: raccoonradio

"Forward"? BIOYA!

4 posted on 01/16/2013 8:06:51 AM PST by martin_fierro (< |:)~)
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To: raccoonradio

I’ll take Graham over McScreamer any day of the week


5 posted on 01/16/2013 8:11:58 AM PST by GQuagmire
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To: GQuagmire
One time I tuned into Howie not knowing she was the fill-in. The only thing I heard with a loud, prolonged, strong Boston accent was “Ahhhhhhhhhhhh yuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu shooooooooahhh (Are you sure?)” It was an easy decision to click.
6 posted on 01/16/2013 8:30:18 AM PST by ConservativeStatement (Obama is the "Disco Duck" president. A no-substance novelty that reached number one.)
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To: raccoonradio

Yesterday he said he had a business related appointment in New York today.


7 posted on 01/17/2013 12:06:42 PM PST by Andy'smom
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To: Andy'smom; Andonius_99; Antique Gal; Big Guy and Rusty 99; bitt; Barset; Carolinamom; CatQuilt; ...
Herald Banner: Just in Lt Gov Tim Murray says he will not run for MA Governor in 2014.

Fri column ping

Howie Carr: Hacks cheer 
Deval’s ‘vision’

Howie Carr

Friday, January 18, 2013

What more do you need to know? We’re screwed.

And now the tax-fattened hyenas of the hackerama ramp up their campaign of lies and cliches. All the nonprofits who pay no taxes themselves want to pick your pocket.

Yes, the seals all agree, Gov. Patrick has shown “vision.” What kind of vision?

Bold vision.

Why has he shown bold vision? Because there’s a problem with the infrastructure — the “crumbling” infrastructure. And we need an expansion of the transportation system — a “sweeping” expansion. Decisions must be made — tough decisions. Thank God, Gov. Mini-Me has come up with a plan — a long-term plan.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before.

“The people,” Deval said, “want the rail and road services we have laid out.”

So true. How often have you heard people wistfully saying, “If only we had trains running between Pittsfield and New York ...”

As the moonbat gazette gushed yesterday, Deval is trying to “achieve the vision he first presented when he burst onto the political scene ... in 2006.”

You recall Deval’s vision of 2006. He was going to cut everybody’s property taxes. How’d that one work out for you? Apparently that vision wasn’t bold or sweeping enough, so it’s crumbled, you might say, just like the infrastructure. The only bold new vision on display Wednesday night was to raising the income tax a dizzying 19 percent — from 5.25 percent to 6.25 percent.

The same people who’ve already been robbed this month of between 2 and 6 percent of their income by the feds are now looking at another 1 percent paycut. For what? Police details, $130,000-a-year judges who work less than 37 weeks a year, 19,000 EBT cardholders who are about as real as Manti Te’o’s girlfriend ...

The hacks at the State House need your money. It’s not cheap, you know, giving free in-state college tuition to all those illegal aliens. Not to mention the sex-change operations for wife-killers.

And Billy Bulger’s $200,000 pension.

And don’t forget the pensions and full health benefits for all those T employees who retired before they were 45 and then went on to start working on a second hack pension ... in the Probation Department.

“Let’s have a serious, respectful, fact-based debate.”

In moonbat parlance, that means Deval wants a “dialogue.” The Beautiful People are always “willing to listen.” After which they tell you to shut up. If you try to get in a word edgewise, it’s “hate speech.” They have “facts,” you have “anecdotes.”

The door is open, the mind is closed.

article

8 posted on 01/18/2013 9:02:29 AM PST by raccoonradio
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To: GQuagmire; raccoonradio
I’ll take Graham over McScreamer any day of the week

Same here!

Is McScreamer officially gone for good as Howie's main sub? (Crossing fingers...)

9 posted on 01/18/2013 9:38:14 AM PST by nutmeg (FUBO!)
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To: GQuagmire
I’ll take Graham over McScreamer any day of the week

You can keep both of them. graham is waaaaay too hyper and mcscreamer - well - she's just waaaaaay too loud.

10 posted on 01/18/2013 11:25:58 AM PST by rockabyebaby (We are sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo screwed!)
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To: nutmeg
Is McScreamer officially gone for good as Howie's main sub?

Not sure....Howie and Graham are friends, Howie probably wanted to give Graham some air time so people won't forget about him! Maybe that was an audition for a weekend show?

11 posted on 01/18/2013 11:28:11 AM PST by rockabyebaby (We are sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo screwed!)
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To: rockabyebaby; Andonius_99; Andy'smom; Antique Gal; Big Guy and Rusty 99; bitt; Barset; ...
Sun column ping

Tim Murray’s done one wreck of a job

by Howie Carr

Sunday, January 20, 2013
Tim’s done one wreck of a job

How dare Lt. Gov. Crash Murray quit before we the voters have had the distinct pleasure of voting him out of office next year when he runs for — please stifle your laughter — governor.

Tim Murray managed to work in every cliche Friday as he announced his plan to go permanently on the lam. But tubby Tim vowed to keep his chins up. As he told his local newspaper, “It’s not the end of the book.”

Surely he meant to say, “comic book.”

Comrade Deval Patrick even took time out from his arduous duties of collectivizing the Massachusetts economy to describe his little buddy as a “magnificent lieutenant governor,” which is like being a magnificent traffic cone.

Said the governor, who is in the midst of his own makeover, into the Hugo Chavez of New England: “I’ve seen him in action.”

Surely Deval meant to say, “inaction.”

It seems like just yesterday when Tiny Tim’s career was beginning with such a flourish. It was January 2007, and he was being sworn in by the soon-to-be-indicted House Speaker Sal DiMasi. Mistah Speakah was holding a book he was somewhat less than familiar with, a Bible.

“Raise your right hand,” the future jailbird said.

Up went Murray’s left hand.

This is not to say the man is stupid. It only took him three tries to pass the bar exam. In retrospect, his career trajectory resembled that of the other Tim — Tim Cahill. Both of them have the soul — and brains — of a city councilor, Cahill in Quincy, Murray in Worcester.

“I loved being city councilor,” Tim Murray admitted Friday. And why not — City Hall gave him a place to come in out of the rain.

Most likely we’ll see Murray again when the grand jury investigating disgraced Chelsea Housing Authority boss Mike McLaughlin wraps up its deliberations. The very ethical McLaughlin allegedly was raising dough for the Pillsbury Dough Boy, when he wasn’t paying himself $360,000, about $200,000 a year more than he was statutorily entitled to.

A couple of days after the McLaughlin story broke in October 2011, Murray wrecked his state Crown Vic around 5:20 a.m. on I-190. He was in his pajamas and bedroom slippers at the time. He said he was going 65 mph. The state police said it was more like 108 mph, and they’re his friends.

Some cheeky reporter had the nerve to ask Crash Friday if he’d discussed his, ahem, career change with the U.S. attorney.

Tiny Tim repeated his tall tale about quitting for family reasons — “that’s what this decision is based of.”

Is based of? Crash always folds under pressure.

As Murray tried to maintain a shred of dignity in his humiliating departure Friday, everybody on the Internet was making sport of him. He found out there was a height requirement for the governor’s job. His campaign had hit a wall. It was a train wreck, er car wreck. Now he’ll never be in the driver’s seat at the State House. Will he continue “stonewalling” on the release of his cell phone records?

Actually, though, Murray goes out in the finest tradition of failed lieutenant governors. He raised money like crazy up to the last minute — taking in just under $137,000 in the last two weeks of 2012, leaving him with a balance of $359,493.62. And yes, he can take it with him, as long as he plans to run for political office again someday, wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

He learned well from Jane Swift.

Look on the bright side, Tim. You’re not in the Legislature — that means you won’t have to wait a year to start lobbying against your boss’ ruinous tax increases.

As for the rest of us, we now have to start looking for a new candidate for 2014. I only see one man who can fill the tiny Buster Brown shoes of Tim Murray.

Come on down, Willie Lantigua!

article

12 posted on 01/20/2013 12:14:23 AM PST by raccoonradio
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To: raccoonradio; Andonius_99; Andy'smom; Antique Gal; Big Guy and Rusty 99; bitt; Barset; ...

Wed column ping slightly late

Murphy’s Law, it’s not
by Howie Carr
Wednesday, January 23, 2013

No good deed goes unpunished.

Remember that old saying, Barney Frank. Because what just happened to Boston City Council President Steve Murphy yesterday is going to happen to you soon.

Like Murphy, you’re about to be passed over for a job you really want. The only difference between you and Murphy is Murphy actually should have gotten the sheriff’s job he coveted, because he once did a favor for the appointing authority.

I’m drawing a blank on anything you ever did for anybody else, Barney. If they ever name a street after you, it’ll have to be a one-way.

Anyway, Steve Murphy wanted to be High Sheriff of Suffolk County, succeeding Andrea Cabral, the new public safety secretary. Gov. Deval Patrick makes the pick. Deval picked Cabral’s flack, Steve Tompkins. Never mind that back in 2006, Murphy was Deval’s go-to guy in the 87 precincts of white Old Boston.

Everybody else was with Tom Reilly or, if they were for sale, with Chris Gabrieli.

There was one other white Irish pol from Boston with Deval — then-Sen. Maid Marian Walsh.

Murphy lent Deval bodies, Walsh lent him her “name,” such as it was. So after Deval won, when Marian’s hack husband had to retire from the bench at age 70, Deval put him on the Industrial Accidents Board for $113,000 a year. Deval also tried to hand Sen. Walsh that phoney-baloney $175,000 hack job that blew up in both their faces. But the point is, Deval didn’t give her one hack job, he tried to give her two.

And Murphy got the doughnut.

Granted, Murphy had a lot going against his stealth campaign for sheriff.

No. 1, his heavy lifting for Deval was way back in 2006. Deval’s motto: “What have you done for me lately?”

No. 2, Murphy is white, Irish, Catholic and a Boston native.

No. 3, Andrea Cabral hates Murphy. He ran against her once.

No. 4, Mumbles Menino hates ex-city councilor Michael “Flats” Flaherty.

“What?” you ask. What does No. 4 have to do with Nos. 1-3? Well, if Murphy had been appointed sheriff, then Flats, who ran against Mumbles in 2009, would be back on the City Council.

But wait, does Mumbles really think Flats could run again for mayor this year? Or even more absurdly, does Mumbles believe he’ll be seeking, what, his seventh term in 2017?

That’s Mumbles for you. He’s Italian, but he has Irish Alzheimer’s. He’s forgotten everything but the grudges.

Just remember Barney, when you get passed over for the Senate, don’t accuse anybody of homophobia or bigotry of any kind. This happens every day. This is Boston.


13 posted on 01/24/2013 8:18:01 AM PST by raccoonradio
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To: raccoonradio

I like Michael Graham. Plus, my teenage daughter does a great, “IIIIIIIIIIAAAAAAAMMMM Michael Graham!”


14 posted on 01/24/2013 8:38:25 AM PST by St_Thomas_Aquinas
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To: raccoonradio
There's two standards in the mind of a liberal - one for the 'Franks' of the liberal world - filled with passes and forgiveness - and one for the rest of us mere mortals.

If Hillary had worked for Nixon during Watergate she would have testified: 'Who cares who broke in - that's not the issue - what matters is what do we do now..."

The Washington Post would tells Nixon how 'brave' she was - and Woodward and Bernstein would inquire if they could kiss her butt. The New York Times would come in late (as usual) and request the right to kiss her butt too.

Another reason the press was respected then - and isn't now...

That's the equivalent....

Thanks for the ping raccoonradio

15 posted on 01/24/2013 8:59:58 AM PST by GOPJ ( Do murder laws control murders?..freeper Red Badger Let's try Criminal control - Fr:MadMax)
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To: raccoonradio; Andonius_99; Andy'smom; Antique Gal; Big Guy and Rusty 99; bitt; Barset; ...
Fri column ping Memo to D.C.: Take Kerry, he’s all yours
Jan 25, 2013

By Howie Carr / Boston Herald

None of his fellow solons was impolite enough yesterday to ask U.S. Sen. John Forbes Kerry the only question anybody really wants him to answer.

“Senator, are you really worth $193 million?”

Secretary of state? Who cares. I want to know how he got all that dough, and please, no jokes about how he made it the old-fashioned way, he married it. Whatever happened to prenups?

I’d always heard Mama T gave him a couple Old Masters oil paintings or some other kind of art worth maybe $10 million so he wouldn’t feel like what he is, and has always been, which is a gigolo. I remember him saying a few years ago that “my wife is independently wealthy, 
but I rely on my Senate 
salary ...”

This may have been when it came out that he’d given $60 to charity the previous year.

But now this $193 million number is all over the Internet, except when it’s $194 million. I read somewhere yesterday that a lot of it came from “four trusts inherited from Forbes family members.”

Of course, none of his fellow senators wanted to treat him with anything except kid gloves. He got no questions about 
unpaid sales taxes, fire hydrants or penis straws. It is, after all, the world’s most exclusive club, although if you’ve ever watched them from the gallery, what it really looks like is a convention of mid-market weekend TV 
anchors, all of whom wear Size 42 long.

Nobody questioned Kerry about his famous initial 1971 appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, recounting the stories of other Vietnam veterans (which he’d been told, he made sure to say) “of times that they personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable radios to human genitals, cut off limbs, blew up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan ...”

Which he pronounced Gin-ghis Khan.

No senator called him on that slur, either. Here’s another question he should have been asked: “Sen. Kerry, name one foreign policy issue you’ve been right about. Just one.”

Like, say, the nuclear freeze. Or the first Iraq War (against) or the second (he was for it). Do you still think Bashar al-Assad of Syria is a reformer, a fine fellow indeed? And speaking of being a fine judge of character, how’d you happen to pick John Edwards as your running mate in 2004?

But Kerry did hit one out of the park: “I will not take it personally that this is the one thing in Washington that seems to have united Democrats and 
Republicans — to get me out of the Senate.”

You got that one right, Liveshot. In the name of God, go.

column

16 posted on 01/25/2013 8:35:12 AM PST by raccoonradio
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To: raccoonradio; Andonius_99; Andy'smom; Antique Gal; Big Guy and Rusty 99; bitt; Barset; ...
Sun. column ping

Well, Tim, you DID ASK for IT!

By Howie Carr / Boston Herald

Sun Jan 27, 2013

Just be glad your first name isn’t Tim — Attorney General Marsha Coakley would probably be trying to put you in jail. She must have had a really bad blind date way back when with some guy named Tim.

First it was Tim Cahill, the former state treasurer. Now it’s Tim Murray, the bust-out lieutenant governor.

Poor Tim Murray. When he basically quit politics last week, he must have figured the posses would break off their pursuit. But no — first the feds bag his, uh, fundraiser, Mike McLaughlin, on four felony counts. U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz beat Marsha to the prosecutorial punch.

How very convenient that we learn the very next day Marsha’s been conducting her own probe into whether Murray broke campaign finance law by accepting donations from McLaughlin.

But wait, Murray said. How dare you do this to me? I asked for this investigation.

Exactly, Crash. You asked for it. What is the problem with these shady hacks demanding probes? When will they ever learn?

First it was then-Revere Mayor Bill Reinstein. There was a lot of stealing going on during the construction of Revere High School. Reinstein wrote a letter to his pal, Suffolk District Attorney Garrett Byrne, demanding an investigation, wink, wink. Then he wrote a second letter. When 
Byrne got the third letter, he had no choice.

He indicted 
Reinstein. The mayor was shocked.

“What was I supposed to do?” Byrne said. “He kept writing me these letters. …”

Then there was Congressman Nicky “Pockets” Mavroules. He wrote his letter to the FBI. He said his son-in-law was a bad guy. He was. He was also Nicky Pockets’ bagman. Guess which one ended up in Club Fed?

And now it’s Tiny Tim Murray. We all know he’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but maybe he’s laying the groundwork of a defense — that he’s too stupid to have known that he may have been committing a crime by associating with Mike McLaughlin, the former head of the Chelsea Housing Authority who is now charged with falsely reporting his salary.

In 2011, Mike reported a salary of $160,415 when he really made $324,896. Between 2008 and 2010, he underreported his salary by $391,000. How did the feds learn this? They checked his IRS returns. Mikey, who knew a lot of the boys, wasn’t going to go down like Al Capone, for tax evasion.

So the feds grabbed him on the other end for 
allegedly lying in the documents he had to send to state and federal authorities who oversaw the Housing Authority, and not very well, obviously.

Anyone who knew McLaughlin is not surprised that he’s all jammed up. 
 They’re just puzzled it didn’t happen 30 years ago. The city manager of Chelsea said he thought McLaughlin was a “reformed rogue,” but it appears that McLaughlin is actually a rogue who lost his fastball. He should have cut his plea bargain before Crash got out of the governor’s fight. It’s a lot better to be trading up a live pol than a dead one.

Middlesex Commissioner Mike McLaughlin was trained better than this. Middlesex County was a crime school.

All these years later, it’s hard to explain just how corrupt Middlesex County was. Middlesex County had a roads department, but no roads. It had a dog officer, but no unincorporated areas for the dog officer to patrol.

The county administrator was John Buonomo, who would later go to jail for stealing cash from the Registry of Deeds copying machines. A guy went out on disability for falling out of the chair at his desk.

Those were the glory days, for the Winter Hill Gang and Middlesex County. They are both but shadows of their former shelves. Mike McLaughlin looks to be going down for the count, and he’s taking Tim Murray with him.

In Somerville, the old timers are amazed. Who would have ever thought Mike McLaughlin would go to the can before Howie Winter? And his name isn’t even “Tim.”

article

17 posted on 01/26/2013 9:28:25 PM PST by raccoonradio
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To: raccoonradio; Andonius_99; Andy'smom; Antique Gal; Big Guy and Rusty 99; bitt; Barset; ...
Wed column ping

article

Here’s what hearing should be driving at
by Howie Carr

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

We could get to the bottom of the whole Tim Murray story today. We could have all the answers about his mysterious 108 mph crash of a State Police Crown Vic at 5:20 a.m. while wearing pajamas and bedroom slippers.

You see, the then-secretary of public safety, the boss of the Mass. State Police who responded to the accident, will be answering questions today at the State House. Mary Beth Heffernan, a hack’s hack, has her judicial hearing today in front of the Governor’s Council. They could ask her anything they want, and she has to answer.

She knows what happened in Sterling on I-190. Why do you think Deval nominated her after basically forcing her out of the job for terminal ineptness?

Will the governor’s councilors ask her any embarrassing questions about Tiny Tim?

Absolutely not.

This new council reminds me of Marsha Coakley — they’ll leave no stone unturned, except the one the perp is hiding under.

Not that Murray isn’t sweating bullets this morning. Yesterday I called his press office asking if he planned to preside over the hearing. The question called for a “yes” or “no” answer.

An hour later, they sent me a 138-word statement.

I’ll sum it down for you. No.

Anyway, just in case any councilors want to go rogue, here are a few start-up questions:

• When did you first find out about the accident, and who told you?

• Why was the lieutenant governor issued a souped-up $60,000 State Police car, and why was he allowed to settle with the state for only $8,000 for destroying the vehicle?

• If he paid with a personal check, wouldn’t this be an admission of use of public property for personal benefit, and did you notify the attorney general or Department of Revenue?

• If he paid with a campaign check, wouldn’t this be an admission of use of public property for political purposes, and did you notify the State Ethics Commission and the Office of Campaign and Political Finance?

• Do you have an opinion regarding the public cell-phone records of elected officials — phones that are paid for with public funds? Why do you suppose the lieutenant governor refuses to release them? Have you seen those phone records, and, if you have, who was he calling at 5:20 a.m. that he doesn’t want the public to know about?

• Why did you support the obviously unqualified Marc Conrad for the Parole Board?

• Have any state cars been totaled by members of the State Parole Board?

Mary Beth wants to take early retirement, which is what a state judgeship is. Wouldn’t it be great if they gave her a grilling? Alas, don’t hold your breath.

18 posted on 01/30/2013 8:49:03 AM PST by raccoonradio
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To: raccoonradio; Andonius_99; Andy'smom; Antique Gal; Big Guy and Rusty 99; bitt; Barset; ...

from Salem News

January 30, 2013
Anderson: The Golden Age of golden voices
Barbara Anderson
The Salem News

For more than 30 years, talk radio has been the best friend of center-right activists, here in Massachusetts, across the nation. While nationally, the syndicated hosts still have influence, our local version is almost dead. I mourn; I don’t know what to do without it.

When I moved here in the ’70s, my Massachusetts-native husband suggested I listen to Avi Nelson on WHDH to get the lay of the political land. Avi at the time was helping to fight court-ordered busing in Boston. And now, he is one of the two great Boston-radio talk hosts still on the air.

I hope some North Shore readers remember talk host Irv Kaiser; his Lynn studio was on my way to my new job at Citizens for Limited Taxation, so it was a good place to start my “career” as a talk show guest. Years later, he invited me on his new show at Salem’s WESX, as did Al Needham.

My second 1979 CLT assignment was the David Brudnoy Show. He had filled in when Avi ran for office, and eventually they were both fixtures on Boston-based radio. By then, I was CLT’s executive director and doing regular stints with them, as well as with Pat Whitley and Gene Burns. I even filled in for Avi once, quickly realized I preferred being a guest with nothing to do but focus on my issue — which at that time was the initiative petition Proposition 21/2.

While we also had support for our property tax limit from many newspaper editorial boards, I don’t think we could have won this intensely fought battle without talk radio, which encouraged people to help collect signatures on the petition and become activists during the ballot campaign.

Over the years, I drove to the Moe Lausier and Henry Varreiro shows in Fall River/New Bedford, to Paul Sullivan in Lowell, regularly went to Worcester and as far as Springfield and Holyoke. Doing talk radio was a vital part of my job.

Jerry Williams had been one of the first Boston talk show hosts; when he returned in 1981, I was invited on his show to discuss tax limitation in general. I’d been warned by conservatives that he was a liberal, but in fact he called himself “classic liberal,” i.e., a libertarian, like most of the area talk show hosts; we hit it off immediately and I was a frequent guest on his show for the next 20 years. In 1988, he created “The Governors” on WRKO: Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr and I joined him weekly to pretend we were running the commonwealth. After Howie left for his own show, Bob Katzen of Beacon Hill Roll Call became the third “governor.”

WRKO had gone all talk in 1981. During morning drive time, it featured conservative-liberal teams, Pat Whitley with Marjorie Clapprood, Janet Jeghelian with Ted O’Brien. Until recently, a similar team, Margery Eagan and Jim Braude, argued on FM’s WTKK. By then, I was working from home; instead of being an in-studio guest, I was a call-in guest with them and with the afternoon’s Michael Graham.

At home, my radio was tuned to talk radio from the time I woke up until it was time to watch television talk, Emily Rooney at 7 p.m. By 2012, David, Jerry and Paul had died, but Howie was still on ’RKO, as was Todd Feinburg, one of the best in my long experience: great voice, knowledgeable, good-natured. He was paired with Tom Finneran, who, when autocratic speaker of the house, gave talk show hosts plenty of fodder in the “what’s wrong with Beacon Hill” category.

Because of this bad history, Finneran was hard to hear on state government issues. Eventually, he was gone, and then, one morning, Todd was gone, too! Next, Michael Graham disappeared: Then a few weeks ago, Jim & Margery had their last show as ’TKK became a rap music station!

While I’m still called by local stations, mostly south of Boston, and Dan Rea is on WBZ at night, only two hosts are doing good traditional local talk during the day, on AM 680 ’RKO: Howie from 3 to 7 p.m. and Avi on Saturday from 3 to 5 p.m. I enjoy Barry Armstrong and June Knight on midmorning weekdays; their economic show often includes fiscal politics, for which they generally have good instincts.

I rarely listen to the early morning Jeff Kuhner show; we need more local center-right talk radio, but a bad show can do more harm than good. Because of my long experience, I have standards: a decent voice, a determination to get the facts right, are these too much to ask?

My partner Chip Ford, who ran ballot campaigns with Jerry Williams, is trying to help, sending the Kuhner Report information and links to make him better informed: good luck, Chip. I called once to gently correct his misstatement that Scott Brown had voted for higher taxes, but gave up when he refused to listen, calling me “a Republican hack.”

Oh well; we were lucky to have talk radio as it was when we did, and some variation may come along to intelligently support tax limitation and other liberty issues. The genre is presently moving to the Internet; I can talk with Todd Feinburg there on Facebook, and isn’t that a brave new world!


(one of the comments to the article reads:
“Talk radio demographics skew older people.
And sponsors don’t care about the 55 and up folks.
The only decent talk shows on radio are Howie Carr and John Batchelor.
The NPR stuff is pure lefty cotton candy. “


19 posted on 01/30/2013 11:15:49 AM PST by raccoonradio
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To: raccoonradio

I share her appreciation of Kuhner.

I thought Dukakis complained that the Commonwealth had one Governor, not three (a reference to Howie, Jerry and Barbara), to when Howie and Barbara made their weekly appearances on Jerry’s show, they called themselves “The Three Governors”.


20 posted on 01/30/2013 11:26:22 AM PST by Lonesome in Massachussets (What word begins with "O" and ends in economic collapse?)
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