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.
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!