Free Republic

Gov. Deval Patrick yesterday announced that NStar [NST] — as part of its bid to merge with Connecticut-based Northeast Utilities — has agreed to buy 27.5 percent of the electricity that will be generated by the yet-to-be-built Cape Wind project. And by “agreed” we really mean “succumbed to unprecedented pressure from Patrick’s team, designed to ensure that the offshore wind project may some day, with enough government coaxing, actually break ground.”

Hours after Mitt Romney eked out a win in the Iowa caucuses over former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, Gov. Deval Patrick called the victory for the former Bay State governor a win for the Tea Party. Appearing on the CBS Early Show on Wednesday, Patrick defended President Barack Obama and called the Republican cast of challengers “interchangeable.” “It’s a win last night for the Tea Party agenda. That was really the big winner. I mean the candidates in many respects are interchangeable because they’re all offering exactly the same plan, and that’s a plan that says that everybody in America...

Gov. Deval Patrick signed legislation Wednesday adding the words “gender identity” to the state’s non-discrimination laws, a bid to prevent discrimination against transgender residents seeking housing, employment, credit or post-secondary education. The bill also expands the state's hate crimes statutes to include violence perpetrated against transgender men and women. Patrick said he signed the bill as a matter of “conscience” even though lawmakers had stripped a provision that would have required all “sex-segregated facilities” to grant admission to people based on their gender identity, rather than their biological gender. The provision, viewed as a key component by advocates of the...

Deval Patrick is working on a new book — and he wants you to help write it. The forthcoming publication will be about “the politics of conviction,” Patrick wrote in an email to supporters this afternoon. “I want to highlight some of the shining examples of it across this Commonwealth and the country that are strengthening our communities and inspiring the next generation of citizens,” Patrick wrote. “If we believe that there is a different way to do things, if we want to see conviction matter more than convenience in our politics, we need to start making the case for...

Russell and Patricia Caswell are a hard-working couple who may soon have their American Dream taken from them by the unholy alliance of local and federal law enforcement officials seeking to cash in on the Caswell’s property. The Caswells face this dilemma even though they have broken no law and have spent their entire professional career working to combat crime with the very police force that now seeks to take their property though civil forfeiture. What is happening to Russ and Pat, however, is by no means an isolated instance and local law enforcement’s end-run around state laws designed to...

Gulfstream Aerospace has picked Westfield-Barnes Regional Airport as the new site for a $23 million maintenance facility for its new ultra long-range G650 corporate jet. The project, announced Friday, is expected to add 100 jobs to the 130 technicians Gulfstream already employs at the airport. There will be 200 construction jobs associated with the 100,000-square-foot hangar. Construction starts in April and the building is expected to be ready by the middle of 2013, according to Gulfstream, a unit of Virginia-based General Dynamics. Gov. Deval L. Patrick expressed his excitement for the project. “It goes announcement by announcement, ribbon cutting by...

An 11-year-old Ipswich girl was hit and dragged by a truck while riding her bike to school Wednesday. Now, residents say the details surrounding the horrible incident are becoming all too common in the Bay State. Police say the suspect who hit the sixth grader as he pulled out of the driveway of his home is an illegal immigrant who doesn't even have a license. It turns out 35-year-old Wanderson DaSilva-Neto has an outstanding warrant for his deportation back to Brazil.

A few months after Massachusetts’s governor rejected a federal program that checks the immigration status of local arrestees, a drunk illegal alien with a criminal history killed a motorcyclist in the state and another who had been deported racked up his sixth drunk- driving charge. Had the state participated in the federal Secure Communities program, both men would have been turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for deportation long ago. Instead, they were released by local police and allowed to continue committing crimes in their respective communities. That’s because the state’s governor, renowned open borders advocate Deval Patrick,...

Here’s what we know about the Marshfield murder case: The allegedly killer was apparently here illegally. He gave police a fake name, and his “real” name doesn’t appear on any immigration documents (according to ICE). His visa number on the passport bearing Almeida’s name and photo “was issued to a Kuwaiti female in Beruit in 2003.” AND… This guy with these blatant immigration problems was arrested in June—three months before he stabbed a 24-year-old woman to death. Why wasn’t he caught then? Why didn’t ICE flag this guy and his bogus documents, or demand that he clear up when/where he...

Three defiant Bay State sheriffs hell-bent on tougher immigration enforcement have taken an end run around Gov. Deval Patrick, traveling to Washington, D.C., to hammer out their own version of the Secure Communities program in a stinging rejection of the administration’s stand on illegals. “The governor is out of touch on this issue, and he really and truly does not represent the interest of the people of Massachusetts on this issue,” Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson said. “We’re basically saying to the governor, ‘Look. You’re entitled to your position.’ But the governor doesn’t elect us. We represent the people of...

It’s going to take some politician’s kid getting killed by a drunken illegal alien before the hacks finally figure out that there’s a mighty big problem here. You know what happened in Milford on Saturday night. A totally smashed illegal from Ecuador is accused of running a stop sign and mowing down a 23-year-old American on a motorcycle, and then proceeding to drag him, screaming, under his truck for a quarter mile. When the illegal finally ran off the road, the American became disentangled. He was still alive. But then the illegal backed his truck back over him, according to...

It’s going to take some politician’s kid getting killed by a drunken illegal alien before the hacks finally figure out that there’s a mighty big problem here. You know what happened in Milford on Saturday night. A totally smashed illegal from Ecuador is accused of running a stop sign and mowing down a 23-year-old American on a motorcycle, and then proceeding to drag him, screaming, under his truck for a quarter mile. When the illegal finally ran off the road, the American became disentangled. He was still alive. But then the illegal backed his truck back over him, according to...

Evergreen Solar Inc., the Marlboro clean-energy company that received millions in state subsidies to build an ill-fated Bay State factory, has filed for bankruptcy. Evergreen, which closed its taxpayer-supported Devens factory in March and cut 800 jobs, has been trying to rework its debt for months. The company announced today it is seeking a reorganization in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware and also reached a deal with certain note holders to restructure its debt and sell off certain assets. Evergreen secured a $58 million financial aid package from the Patrick administration to help build the $450 million Devens factory. The...

Sacked MBTA punks back on the job (includes drug use, child rape, assault, and assault vs co-workers) "The MBTA has been forced to rehire seven drivers and other key employees after they were fired for offenses ranging from dozing at the wheel due to drug use, child rape, and assaulting and making bizarre threats of violence against co-workers - after bureaucratic arbitrators overturned their dismissals on technicalities. News of arbitrators’ leniency toward public servants entrusted with passenger safety has alarmed T crash victims, rider advocates and the pols who oversee the region’s sprawling transit system. ... Papapietro said he doesn’t...

Gov. Deval Patrick showed up unexpectedly at a hearing today to urge lawmakers to pass legislation that would make certain undocumented immigrants eligible to pay in-state tuition rates at public colleges and universities, cautioning legislators against be caught up in the “hyperbole of immigration.” “It’s time for us to fix the law. This really is a matter of fairness,” Patrick told the Committee on Higher Education, after apologizing for showing up unannounced. “I just ask you to keep in mind the faces, the lives, and real experiences of the young people whose future is at stake,” Patrick said. The bills,...

Lawmakers and unions slammed Gov. Deval Patrick yesterday for triggering a pay-raise bonanza to the tune of nearly $10 million with a 3 percent salary hike for as many as 4,000 state managers — even as Bay State residents face frozen salaries and unemployment. Jay Gonzalez, Patrick’s finance and administration secretary who released the news of the pay raise, argued that state managers haven’t gotten a raise since July 2007. “We have to make sure state government is a place where people actually want to work. We need to retain and attract good people,” Gonzalez said, adding that he and...

Candidates lob shots during convention Open season on Scott Brown officially kicked off yesterday with five of the six Democratic candidates seeking to reclaim the “people’s seat” training their sights and barbs squarely on the freshman U.S. senator during speeches at their party’s state convention in Lowell. “When Ted Kennedy went behind closed doors with lawmakers and lobbyists, he always fought for us,” Bob Massie, the nonprofit executive who ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor in 1994, told some 3,000 Democratic delegates gathered on the floor of Tsongas Center. “When Scott Brown goes behind closed door with lawmakers and lobbyists and...

How can this be? The value of your home keeps going down, yet the property taxes never stop going up. Back in 2006, didn’t candidate Deval Patrick promise to cut property taxes? If he does have to testify under oath at Sal DiMasi’s corruption trial next week, I hope someone asks him about that pledge, just to establish his reputation for veracity, or lack thereof. “Governor, did you know you were lying when you vowed to cut property taxes, or maybe we all misunderstood you, and you really meant to say you were going to cut property values? Which is...

BOSTON (AP) — Gov. Deval Patrick is proposing tougher gun laws to help curb youth violence. Patrick said Monday his bill would tighten existing gun laws by giving police new criminal sanctions and investigative tools to go after guns and gangs. The bill would also create three new gun-related crimes — assault and battery with a firearm, assault with a firearm, and a "felon in possession" law that matches existing federal law. Patrick said he would also ask for $10 million in public and private funding to fill in gaps in programs and resources needed to make neighborhoods safer, including...

Gov. Deval Patrick’s ties and campaign support for William Lantigua are in the spotlight as the Lawrence mayor faces a corruption probe and scrutiny of a $35 million state bailout for the down-and-out city. It was revealed yesterday that state and federal investigators are probing Lantigua’s dealings with Lawrence tow companies, night clubs and taxi outfits. Lantigua has denied the allegations. The Lantigua bombshell comes as Patrick weathers other distractions. He’s faced criticism for his national book tour. Last week he was named as a possible witness at the public corruption trial of former House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi. A...