State of emergency? We're living in it

Article 9-28-09

Bay State succeeds interim for Kennedy's Seat


by Howie Carr
DNN Staff - EXCLUSIVE!
Monday, Sep. 28, 2009

Forget the People’s Republic of Massachusetts. We are now the Banana Republic of Massachusetts.

That’s not original, but it’s truer than ever. Laws? We don’t need no stinkin’ laws.

“First we shred the rules,” said Rep. Brad Jones, the House Republican leader. “Now we shred the Constitution.”

Here’s how it’s supposed to work. If the Legislature wants a bill to become law immediately, they have to attach what’s called an “emergency preamble.” It takes a two-thirds vote to pass such a preamble. Otherwise, the bill becomes law in 90 days.

So Wednesday, the Legislature approved Ted Kennedy’s deathbed wish to repeal his 2004 nondeathbed wish to take away a (Republican) governor’s power to appoint an interim senator. See, now that the governor is a Democrat, the law is an “abomination.”

The vote to change Teddy’s law for Teddy was 24-16 in the Senate, 95-57 in the House. That’s not two-thirds. But pay no attention to that pesky Constitution. We’ll just have the governor decide it’s an “emergency.” So much for separation of powers.

I don’t care how many times Mitt Romney used this maneuver, it’s still wrong.

Again the larger question: What exactly was the “emergency?”

Teddy missed 97 percent of the roll calls in the Senate before his death this year. None of the moonbats were braying about an emergency. Apparently it was such a nonissue that Teddy himself never considered resigning - even though once he knew he was dying, he could have sent in a letter saying his resignation would be effective in five months.

Ever hear of Sen. Susan Fargo? On Sept. 10 she sent a letter to a constituent of hers in Waltham saying she wouldn’t vote to change the law - “in the interest of fairness and good policy, any change should be considered only after the current special election process has been completed.”

Then, 12 days later, she voted to change the law. So much for fairness and good policy.

But then, this is the same solon who voted in May to increase the state sales tax, then penned an op-ed piece in the Lowell Sun earlier this month denouncing the hike, while neglecting to mention that she was for the increase before she was against it.

This is your one-party state, folks. It’s called democracy, where the people get exactly the government they deserve.

File a lawsuit to stop the appointment? Are you kidding? The judiciary in this state is at least as corrupt as the Legislature. They don’t have time for such frivolous issues. The SJC’s got bigger fish to fry - one of the good old boys, ex-Sen. Jim Marzilli, is asking them to throw out one of the counts in his indictment - assault to commit a crime, indecent assault.

The argument by the perv in the Prius is that there is no “indecent assault” law here in the Banana Republic. Anyone care to bet against the well-connected perv on this one?

Then there’s Chuck “Superfly” Turner, the indicted Boston city councilor. Caught on camera in a federal sting accepting cash, he got 52 percent of the votes Tuesday in his Roxbury district. You really showed The Man this time, Chuck!

Over in Cambridge, former Boston City Councilor Dave Scondras is holding a barbeque for political candidates Sunday. Nevermind that he was convicted in 2006 of enticement of someone he thought was a 15-year-old boy. Wonder if Deval will make it to the convicted hack’s barbeque this year, the way he has in the past.

And now we have a new senator , whose greatest service to the Kennedys came in 1994, when at Faneuil Hall debate against Mitt Romney, he arranged for the candidates to use a giant podium, the better to hide his master’s enormous girth from the TV audience. For this, he is rewarded with a Senate seat.

Will the last taxpayer leaving the Banana Republic please turn out the lights?

Gov. Patrick explains why it's an emergency
to fill Ted Kennedy's Seat.
(DNN Staff photo)



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Is anyone here a Kineavy-ologist?

Article 9-21-09

Mayor's top aide center of E-Mail investigation


by Howie Carr
DNN Staff - EXCLUSIVE!
Monday, Sep. 21, 2009

Mike Kineavy’s friends call him a Southie street guy. Those who aren’t so enamored describe him as a Southie street tough.

Kineavy even combs his hair, what’s left of it anyway, straight back, in the slicked-down Stevie Lynch working-class style.

Call him a throwback wethead if you will, but one thing you can never call Mike Kineavy - a member of the 02127 chapter of Mensa. When the feds start subpoenaing every e-mail in City Hall, you don’t erase yours, not unless you want the kind of mess that has enveloped your boss on the weekend before the preliminary elections.

Mumbles has been very very good to Kineavy. The 54-year-old Southie street whatever made $147,902.91 last year. That’s a long way from his days on the payroll of Rep. Joe Moakley - and did I mention that his uncle, Roger Kineavy, was Mocha’s top guy in Boston? Another nationwide search.

In his youth, Kineavy was just another coatholding Southie party animal. Now he’s straight, a triathalon guy, his obsessions channeled into riding herd over the City Hall hackerama. During the early Mumbles years, he was the guy in the inner circle who wasn’t from Hyde Park. Soon he was running Neighborhood Services, the political machine grafted onto city government. The Ward 18 guys bitched that under Kineavy, Southie was still getting the jobs, as if Raybo had never taken a flyer to Rome.

Now he’s Mumbles’ trusted chief of “policy and planning,” but this bonehead play with the e-mails puts his patron behind the eight-ball. Ironically, the other guy who’s got a problem over the e-mails, in Southie anyway, is Councilor Mike Flaherty, who blew the whistle on one of his own.

According to Southie sources, that didn’t go over well in “the Town.” The Kineavy-Flaherty tale dates back to 1997, when City Councilor Peggy Davis-Mullen let it be known that she’d be going after Mumbles in 2001. So City Hall decided to take her off the board in the off-year elections in 1999. Mumbles needed a Southie candidate for the Council, and it was Baby Flats who got the nod.

In that 1999 campaign, Kineavy did a lot of the heavy lifting for Flats, with Mumbles’ blessing. As it turns out, Peggy survived to get trounced two years later, and the guy City Hall finished off was sick old Dapper O’Neil, reduced to holding his own signs at intersections, hunched over in his wheelchair, slack-jawed, in a blanket.

According to people in Southie, Baby Flats owed Kineavy, not just for 1999, but for every favor since. Why do you think Flats sent him all those e-mails? And yet how does Flats settle his beef with Kineavy? Like a real man, like in the old days in Southie? No, he dials 911. Truly, the Town is no more.

And now the polls open in 48 hours. Flats is spending a quarter-million this weekend, but let’s face it: He’s run a Tom Reilly campaign. The most amazing fact in this election is that he and Sam Yoon are the same age - 40. I’ll bet Yoon gets carded everywhere, not just at Fenway Park [map]. Flaherty looks like he’s about ready to ask for a senior-citizen discount on his T pass, if he ever rode the T that is.

Mumbles retains his blocs - think city workers, Chinatown and the Russians in Brighton. In a low turnout final, they would easily outnumber Flats’ Local 718 and the angry property owners in the northern half of the city who’ve been screwed over by crappy zoning decisions made to benefit Mumbles’ pals from Hyde Park.

If Yoon sneaks in, who knows how the next six weeks unfold?

Mumbles is lighting a candle this morning for Flats. And so is Kineavy, despite Flats’ stabbing him in the back last week. It wouldn’t hurt for Kineavy to get in a final four years on the city at 150K. At this point, for Mike Kineavy and all the rest of Mumbles’ minions, it’s all about the pension. Indeed.

Another one of Menino's minions, Mike
Kineavy, this time his top aide, under
investigation. (DNN Staff photo)



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Time to expose the exposers

Article 9-14-09

John Adams Project buried by media


by Bill O'Reilly
DNN Staff - EXCLUSIVE!
Monday, Sep. 14, 2009

When I think of the terrorist atrocity that happened eight years ago, I feel deeply for people like Vic and Christina Colaio. These two fine Americans lost their sons Stephen and Mark, who both worked in the World Trade Center. Along with their daughter, Jean, the elderly couple suffers their loss on a daily basis. Time does not heal those kinds of wounds.

That is why I am so enraged by the John Adams Project, a group of subversive Americans affiliated with the ACLU who are sneaking around taking pictures of CIA agents who may have interrogated captured al-Qaeda guys in the wake of 9/11. This insidious outfit believes the CIA tortured casually and the U.S. is a “human-rights violator.”

After taking the surreptitious photos, the Adams Project then passes them on to lawyers representing incarcerated terrorists, hoping that an accused man will, in turn, accuse a CIA agent of torturing him. This nasty business is now being investigated by the Justice Department, but the Obama administration has kept very quiet about it and, strangely, so have the media.

Very few newspapers have reported on the John Adams Project, and there is something quite disturbing about that. Remember Valerie Plame? She was the CIA operative publicly exposed by columnist Robert Novak in an Iraq weapons-of-mass-destruction controversy. After that happened, the left-wing media went wild with indignation. How could anyone name a CIA person, thereby putting him or her in danger? The New York Times was on fire over the story. But when faced with the facts about the John Adams Project, the Times buried the story on page A-20.

There comes a time when Americans get fed up with hypocrisy and simply walk away from the hypocrites.

I believe many news consumers understand that the fix is in and are furious about selective and distorted reporting. Thus, they are voting with their wallets.

By exposing CIA agents to accused terrorists and their lawyers, the John Adams Project is obviously putting lives in jeopardy. This is a thousand times worse than the Plame affair, which saw top Dick Cheney aide Scooter Libby convicted of a felony while the press largely celebrated.

But where is the coverage of the Adams story? Where is President Obama on the issue? Why are these people being allowed to terrorize the Central Intelligence Agency?

Relevant questions. We await the answers.

The John Adams Project: It was to
protect the rule of law, which was
introduced by John Adams. (File Photo)

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They're drunk on hypocrisy

Article 9-8-09

Democrats guilty of own laws


by Michael Graham
DNN Staff - EXCLUSIVE!
Tuesday, Sep. 8, 2009

“No Shame.”

That’s the motto of Massachusetts Democrats, and what makes them so much fun to watch. And they know we’re watching, too. They just don’t care. They’re the ultimate political exhibitionists, proudly struttin’ their stuff.

And taking it all off for us today is Rep. Michael Rodrigues of Westport. You heard the story: Rodrigues’ car parked in front of a New Hampshire liquor store, his “HOUSE 29” license plate proudly on display. When asked why he was buying sales-tax-free booze across the border, Rodrigues - who voted for our billion-dollar sales tax hike - allegedly told the curious Massachusetts voter to “mind your own business.”

When the story broke, Rodrigues blamed it on “Republican demagoguery.” “That’s why the Republican Party is in such bad shape in Massachusetts,” he told the New Bedford Standard-Times.

Both remaining members of the Bay State GOP were devastated by his words.

If Rodrigues feels the slightest shame over avoiding a booze tax he stuck the rest of us with, it doesn’t show. And why should he? If you’re naive enough to think Massachusetts pols feel some duty to live under the laws they pass, where have you been since Sen. Edward Kennedy died?

In 2004, Democratic legislators rose up to denounce the very idea of a (Republican) governor appointing a U.S. senator. Now many of those same Democrats are demanding that we change the law immediately to let a (Democratic) governor appoint an interim replacement.

A talk host in Washington asked me yesterday if “Gov. Patrick and the Democrats were really blatantly partisan enough to do something this self-serving?”

My answer: “It’s Massachusetts.” No further explanation was required.

In a bizarre sort of way, I almost admire the shamelessness of our Democratic leadership. They’re going screw us, they’re going to raise our taxes, they’re going to flip-flop and that’s that.

These partisan hacks aren’t even hiding their hypocrisy. “Of course we’re changing the law to benefit us,” they’re essentially saying. “Whaddaya gonna do?”

Based on the behavior of Bay State voters, the answer seems to be “nothing.”

No, it’s not just Massachusetts. When you’ve got a president who appoints a tax cheat to oversee the IRS and then brags about having the highest ethical standards of any administration ever, well that takes chutzpah.

Meanwhile, the head Democrat for tax policy in the U.S. House - Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel - keeps getting caught failing to report his taxable assets. When he gets caught (last week, for another), he just pays his back taxes and walks away.

No penalties, no fees, no hassles. And no shame.

In the private sector, con men and rip-off artists try to hide their identities and conceal their scams. In politics, they mount their vanity plates and head to the nearest press conference.

In Lowell last Friday, the city’s fire prevention officer parked his department car in the handicapped spot at the post office. Given that the car is literally fire-engine red and marked “Lowell Fire Dept.,” he was hardly inconspicuous. When a photo appeared, his answer was “I needed to mail some letters.”

The fire official was reprimanded, but not punished. After all, this public servant hadn’t done anything wrong. He was just a bit premature. He just needed to win an election first.

State Rep. Michael Rodrigues, inset, who voted to
add a 6.25% tax on alcohol, was spotted last
weekend piling booze into his car - emblazoned
with his ‘House 29’ Mass. license plate - at
a tax-free N.H. liquor store. (DNN Staff photo)

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