Posted on 10/17/2009 8:48:16 PM PDT by raccoonradio
Howie thread for the week. Hopefully his Sun Herald column will be up soon and I will post it
I’ll post Howie’s column (assume there will be one) when it goes on Herald’s site. Stay tuned
sure enough, just past midnite and the column is posted
watching ALCS—Angels just took 3-2 lead over Yanks,
top 11th
Up is down and down is up on Planet Deval Patrick
By Howie Carr | Sunday, October 18, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
So which is it, Deval? Is Massachusetts “poised” for economic recovery - or Armageddon? I’m confused.
This is what Deval said on Wednesday: “Massachusetts is poised to come out of this downturn faster and stronger than the rest of the country.”
This is what he said 24 hours later, on the subject of the state’s $600 million budget deficit (so far) and the possibility of laying off 2,000 state employees: “There are some things we do in state government . . . that we are not going to be able to do anymore.”
Mixed message, anyone?
Deval on Wednesday: “We can plot a course together to make the most of our recovery.”
Deval on Thursday: “There are no quick fixes, no easy choices, no low-hanging fruit.”
Obviously, the electorate here in the low-hanging banana republic of Massachusetts is none too bright - 54 percent voted for Deval, and by the way, how is that property-tax relief he promised working out for you? Together we con. But you can’t fool all of the people all of the time, even if you have the trust-fund media trying their damnedest to put Deval’s political three-card monte game over on the public again.
Which is where the word “poised” comes in. It is surely no coincidence that in announcing that happy days are here again, Deval employed the “p” word. Funny, a certain struggling broadsheet just three weeks ago ran a front-page fantasy that began: “Massachusetts is poised to recover from the economic downturn sooner and faster than the nation as a whole.”
Evidence? Unemployment jumped last week to 9.3 percent, the highest since 1976. A headline Wednesday: “Bay State Chap. 7 bankruptcy filings soar.” A Friday headline: “(Unemployment) insurance fund running out.”
Here’s how the grift works. First the fawning in-the-satchel press runs a story that might charitably be described as thinly sourced. The moonbat governor lifts the lead of the puff piece and inserts it into his press release. What little remains of the rest of the mainstream media can parrot it back.
But sometimes the evidence becomes too overwhelming for even a bow-tied bumkisser to ignore. That’s when Deval and his media cheerleaders trot out another verb to explain away the reality of the economic meltdown they have visited upon us.
The word is “lag.”
Oh sure, they sheepishly admit, it looks bad now, but (fill in the blank: unemployment, bankruptcies, plummeting tax revenues, dead housing market) always “lags” the recovery.
You have to think Deval is watching the New Jersey governor’s race very carefully. As in Massachusetts, you have an unpopular incumbent who has likewise presided over massive corruption and huge tax increases that have cratered the economy.
But the Jersey incumbent, Jon Corzine, also has an independent draining off just enough anti-Democrat votes to keep him running even with his Republican challenger. Sound familiar?
Meanwhile, despite all the gloom-and-doom talk, are the hacks really worried about being laid off? Senate President Therese Murray was quoted as saying her payroll patriot pals are panicking.
“It’s painful, it’s very painful. And you know these people, you can see their faces, you know their families. It’ll be devastating.”
Jeez, they might even have to go out and get . . . real jobs. Or try to, anyway.
Meanwhile, Deval’s Dear Leader, Barack Obama, will be in town this week. And I just thought of another word the media love to throw around when trying to gloss over what their political idols have done to the economy.
The word is “bailout.” What do you suppose Deval’s personal bailout plan is, and will he be discussing it with his friend? I would say yes, Deval is poised for a bailout.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists//view.bg?articleid=1205493
I saw that -- the 23rd, IIRC, Copley Westin, I think. No doubt connected why the obvious "low-hanging fruit" of that unspeakable "ground-breaking" MA health insurance scam -- uh, program -- can't be tampered with, when repeal would be an obvious first step toward recovery! "Model for the nation," indeed!
You can rely on WRKO’s “outsourced” news (Metro/Shadow; the news staff was laid off a couple yrs back to pay for The
Felon). Here, Christa Marx (Marks?) says that the Tenn.
Titans shut out the Patriots 59-0.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOTwrS4RpBc
Howie Monday ping
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOTwrS4RpBc
(2 yrs back they said Dennis Rodman had died. It was
Dennis Johnson)
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4th Hour
CLT in financial trouble
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/politics/view.bg?articleid=1205950
Anti-taxation crusaders beg donors: Pony up
By Hillary Chabot | Tuesday, October 20, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com
Citizens for Limited Taxation - a once powerful antitax group now faced with dwindling support after years of sluggish activity - may have to shut down if it doesn’t get a new infusion of cash fast, according to its staff.
Director Chip Ford sent an e-mail Sunday begging members to attend the group’s annual fund-raising brunch, slated for Nov. 15.
“Save the date - and save CLT,” Ford wrote. “Over the (35) years of its existence, CLT has been financially on the brink many times . . . but right now we are hurting financially more than ever before.”
Barbara Anderson, longtime executive director, said funding has been drying up because “the few . . . supporters we had are either dead, retired or have left the state.”
The number of contributors has dropped over the years, she added, from 4,133 who ponied up $270,000 in 2007, to 3,518 who gave $245,000 last year. So far this year, she added, some 2,904 contributors have forked over $175,000.
Anderson heads up a four-person staff that was paid a total of roughly $140,000 last year. Donations also pay for a monthly $552 rental fee for a portion of a Marblehead property owned by Anderson’s ex-husband. Ford, who lives in the property, pays most of the rent but members also use it for office work.
The rest of the contributions fund ballot initiatives and other group activities. A 2008 push to abolish the state’s income tax went down to a resounding defeat, with 70 percent voting against it.
The group came to prominence in 1982, when it helped push through Prop 2 , the landmark law restricting communities from hiking property taxes more than 2 percent annually.
Anderson herself became a Beacon Hill powerbroker, co-hosting a popular radio show called “The Governors” alongside talkmeister Jerry Williams and Herald columnist Howie Carr, and supporting Gov. Bill Weld and other Republicans.
Too bad, but I think the operative phrase is ”have left the state”
I had two friends in college whose parents told me paying higher taxes, benefits all. This was back in the mid-eighties.
Both of these parents had fled to Florida and out west when they retired and started complaining about the cost of living in MA.
One of them even told me how he has been moving money to the Caimans because he had made so much in real estate and the stock market.
Wed column ping
Plate bill will just gives Dems license to steal
By Howie Carr | Wednesday, October 21, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
I’ve never understood why anyone - even the dimmest solon at the State House - would want to drive around with a license plate that says “House” or “Senate.”
Talk about drawing a target on your back. Maybe once upon a time a rep could count on getting a bit of deference from the local constabulary after taking on a foreign load somewhere, but those days are long past - right, Sen. Galluccio?
OK, so connected hacks like Galluccio will always get a pass. But it’s easier now than ever before for anyone with a cell-phone camera to make a citizens bust, if not an arrest. Would Rep. Mike Rodrigues have ever been bagged at the New Hampshire liquor store if he hadn’t been driving around with a license plate that basically asked the question, “Do you know who I am?”
Most solons these days are beyond obscure, even in their own districts. Most of their own constituents couldn’t pick them out of a lineup. Whether the reps know it or not, this is good news for them.
The fact that so many of them proudly sport these plates anyway is just another indication how stupid they are. Right, Rep. Rodridgues?
At first this $300-plate idea seems like a smart move by the Republicans, to embarrass the Democrat majority. But there will be pushback. These solons are cheap - they wouldn’t pay a nickel to see an earthquake, let alone $300 for a legislative license plate.
What the Democrats will probably do is go along with this, for appearances’ sake. And then they’ll somehow abolish the Registry’s annual license-plate lottery. Right now, every summer you can send in an entry to the RMV’s low-number license-plate lottery - I won once, and don’t believe the stories you hear about how it was rigged, because I actually drew out my own name, in my own studio.
It was strictly legit, and you can trust me. I’m not like the others.
The Legislature established the license-plate lottery about 20 years ago, after an endless series of low-grade scandals. The lottery cut down on the chicanery, but didn’t end it. Somebody on the Cape bought one in a supermarket parking lot. I knew a guy who adopted someone who had a plate (you can still pass them around to relatives, but no one else).
This license-plate lottery has been one of those rare reforms that actually worked. But every action creates a reaction. A $300 bill for their legislative plates will give them just the excuse they’ve been looking for to go back to the bad old days, when only they, and not the rest of us, could steal plates.
Or they could go in another direction. They could demand untraceable license plates, which are better than anything else anyway, because you park any damn place you please, and the tickets you get never get delivered because the plates are untraceable.
I can just see it now. The reps will all claim they’ve been threatened, which is why they need untraceable plates. For the RMV, they’ll even produce threatening letters all written by the solons themselves. The misspellings will give them away every time.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1206170
>>Breaking News-—Lockerbie Bomber has died
death pool winner?
....or did he? being denied
Special Thu column ping (btw I guess the Herald intends
to charge for online content soon. I hope that _Herald
subscribers_ -—I am one— don’t have to pay!)
It’s undebatable: Tom Menino’s eloquence carries the day
By Howie Carr | Thursday, October 22, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Mayor Mumbles Menino’s final debate, and he hit the ball out of the park, just like Ted Williams’ last at-bat in Fenway in 1960.
Let’s go straight to the audio cuts from the last mayoral debate the other night. If you doubt my stenography, please play the associated audio for yourself.
My own personal favorite came when Mumbles was bragging to the TV audience about how well he manages the city of Boston. Even outside groups (or somebody) agree:
“They say Boston, you know how to manage your finances. We’ve done a good job of it with diminishing returns.”
Now that’s worthy of Norm Crosby, or at least the Bowery Boys. Moving along, let’s talk about the lack of people of color in your administration, Mayor.
“You know I just lost one of my administrations to the Obama administration.”
Next topic, development policy in the city. Any thoughts, Mumbles? “We have a zoning plan on the uh outer bounds of uh the Greenway to put some plans together in the kether.”
You can’t make this stuff up folks. No, I just keep playing back the tapes, again and again, so that you don’t have to.
“Matter-a fact the city was in Boston just today.”
Education. You’ve already heard the cut where Mumbles says that on the public schools, he gives himself a grade of “maybe a B+, no a B. I give myself a B, I’ll be generous.”
But wait, there’s more.
“We have schools who need improvement.” Not schools THAT need improvement, but schools WHO need improvement.
Fortunately, Mumbles’ programs are already in place, and they have outside backing.
“Some of the found-ocean folks who support that program...”
Perhaps you hadn’t heard that the Atlantic Ocean had been lost. But now it’s found, by the found-ocean folks.
“I just want to say that uh we as a city continue - also, SATs - we have three programs in the city of Boston - SATs that work at our library in the city of Boston... We’re gonna improve the underperforming schools in our city to raise the level those schools are not performing.”
Did you know that ex-cons have problems getting certain jobs because employers have access to their CORI records? You probably didn’t consider that a problem. But Mumbles says it is, and he’s going to do something about it.
“You know CORI reform? I’ve signed, I’se formed, uh, I filed legislation on CORI reform...I believe we’ll get some CORI reform this year in the Legislature. It’s oooooong overdue.”
Not long overdue. It’s oooooong overdue. Go ahead, fact-check me on these sound cuts. I double-dare you. What about the charges of corruption at City Hall, Mumbles? Flats Flaherty mentioned the toxic words “pay-to-play.”
“We’ve had at any corruption issues over the last several years that become to my administration.”
And finally, the Boston Redevelopment Authority.
“BRA was both the only agency both in state and federal who stepped up to plate to help Chicago - uh Cambridge Biomedical.”
Next stop, election night, Nov. 3. Mumbles and his minions, together in the kether, for a victory celebration. A victory celebration that is oooooooong overdue.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1206444
Fri column ping
Mass. moonbats fly off the handle
By Howie Carr | Friday, October 23, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Welcome to Boston, Mr. President. Stand by for the angry moonbat demonstrators.
They’re mad as hell at you and they’re not going to take it anymore. They don’t like what you’re saying on two or three issues out of a hundred. So you have to be ridden out of town on a rail.
Celebrate diversity - get somebody fired for having a different opinion. Welcome to my world, Barack.
So the moonbats will be parading around wherever you stop today and stamping their little Birkenstock-clad feet and demanding that you be held accountable . . . for something.
Welcome to Boston, a demonstration in search of a cause. A rabble in search of a rouse.
At least organized labor won’t be out in force today. They’re angry, too - Albert Arroyo is, after all, a political prisoner. Just ask Local 718. But it’s Friday - you can’t expect a pinky-ring thug to give up his afternoon on Castle Island, even to defend a hack’s constitutional right to collect a phony disability pension.
But the moonbats have nothing else to do. Their black flags are unfurled. They’re mad . . . about the war, some war, they’re not sure which one, or why, but it’s all Bush’s fault.
Mr. President, when Joe Wilson called you a liar, that was racist hate speech. When the moonbats yell the same thing at you today in Cambridge, it’ll be speaking truth to power.
Free Tarek Mehanna, give him a second chance.
Gay marriage, too - oh, are the moonbats angry about that. I could have sworn they had it already, so maybe it’s don’t-ask-don’t-tell they’re all in a dither about. Or is it AIDS research?
And can you believe the cops in Boston? They have assault rifles - oh wait, never mind.
Yeah, Barack, and, like, what are you doing about that place in Africa, you know, the one we had the green yard signs up for in 2007. What was the name of that place again?
Will you be visiting Auntie Zetuni today, Barack?
First the president will deliver a very riveting speech at MIT on global warming - er, climate change. No one will mention last weekend’s snowstorm. This is about saving the polar bears, man.
Darfur - that’s the name of that place in Africa. What are you doin’ about Darfur, Obama?
After MIT it’s off to the Westin, and the $6,000-a-head fund-raiser - $500 for Deval, $500 for Timmy Murray and $5,000 for the party, which is Deval and Timmy. For $6,000, the Politically Correct greedheads will get to hear the president denounce . . . greed.
The moonbats will be protesting there, too, count on it. Barack could deliver those two Gitmo prisoners to Amherst on Air Force One and personally accompany them down to the welfare office to sign up for reparations, and it still wouldn’t be enough. They’re all on antidepressants, and they’re all very depressed.
Hey, moonbats, what time does the candlelight vigil for Tarek Mehanna start tonight?
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1206714
I wonder if he'll be taking questions at MIT . . . and if that Professor Lindzen (a/k/a "global warming denier") will attend . . . ;-)
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