No compass to Coakley

Article 11-30-09


Martha Coakley lacks conviction


by Michael Graham
DNN Staff - EXCLUSIVE!
Monday, Nov. 30, 2009

Does Attorney General Martha Coakley really believe in “magic rooms”? And if she does, should Bay Staters believe in her?

I realize it’s now gauche to bring up a candidate’s resume and experience. So what if we’re sending an untested leader to Washington to face war and recession? It’s not like they’re going to do something really stupid - like spend millions to “save or create” nonexistent jobs in fictional congressional districts, or give the 9/11 terrorists a trial with all the rights of U.S. citizens.

Right, Mr. President?

Still, I’m old fashioned on these matters, so I spent a few hours reviewing Coakley’s list of legislative and leadership accomplishments. Remember the pamphlet “Great Jewish Sports Legends” from the movie “Airplane”? It’s about that long.

And I ran into a name I hadn’t heard in awhile: Amirault.

The current controversy is over Coakley’s mishandling of the Rev. John Geoghan case. But her fight to keep the Amiraults in jail shows something worse than bad judgment - it shows she’s willing to put party loyalty over people’s lives.

If you lived in Massachusetts in the ’80s, you remember the case. A grandmother and her two adult children who ran a day care were convicted of sexually assaulting very young children. The accusations were incredible in every sense of the word. As Dorothy Rabinowitz recounted in The Wall Street Journal:

“Children had supposedly been raped with knives - which miraculously failed to leave any signs of wounding or other injury - and been assaulted by a clown in a ‘magic room.’ Some children told - after interrogations by investigators - of being forced to drink urine, of watching the Amiraults slaughter blue birds, of meeting robots with flashing lights . . a child also testified he was tied naked to a tree in the schoolyard, in front of all the teachers and children, while ‘Miss Cheryl’ cut the leg off a squirrel.”

Uh-huh. Naked kids and squirrel mutilation in front of an audience, but then-Middlesex District Attorney Scott Harshbarger couldn’t find one witness. There was also no DNA evidence nor a motive. Lead prosecutor Lawrence Hardoon suggested child pornography, but nobody could find even one photo.

Hardoon’s answer: “Just because no evidence of photographs was found doesn’t mean that there were none.”

The Amirault case today is almost universally viewed as a a blot on the Massachusetts legal system. Almost. One holdout is Coakley.

In a statement to Blue Mass Group, Coakley said “I believe the conviction was sound and [Gerald Amirault] received a fair trial.”

Succeeding Harshbarger as district attorney, Coakley went even further. In 2001 when the parole board voted 5-0 to release Gerald Amirault, in part due to “the real and substantial doubt,” about his guilt, Coakley opposed it. In an unusual parole agreement with Coakley, Gerald’s sister Cheryl had to stop all challenges to her conviction and was banned from giving TV interviews.

What little courage it would have taken for Coakley to admit the error of the district attorney’s office. But she claims to believe in magic rape rooms and secret clowns.

Why? Because Coakley’s biggest resume item (other then her gender) is her party loyalty. Whether she’s protecting her fellow courthouse cronies, or letting the big fish wiggle off the Big Dig hook, Coakley is always carrying water for the Democratic establishment.

All she’s going to do if you send her to Washington is get a bigger bucket.

Senate candidate, Martha Coakley explains to a
group of voters why she's best for the job.
(DNN Staff photo)

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Workers worked over

Article 11-23-09

Enterprise doesn't pay in Massachusetts



by Michael Graham
DNN Staff - EXCLUSIVE!
Monday, Nov. 23, 2009

According to my dad, when I was just 10 years old and he was trying to get me to help with some household chore, I (allegedly) told him: “Father, I was not put on this earth for manual labor.”

Now I’m not sure I trust my father’s recollections, but if it’s true all I can say is that I came to the right place. Massachusetts is a great place to live - unless you have to work for a living.

Did you read the Herald story about state senators proposing “Prius-only” parking zones on Massachusetts streets? Advocates of “green parking” are obsessed with climate-change kookery (they’re also getting it wrong - more Hummers circling the block looking for parking is hardly eco-friendly).

But my first thought wasn’t about global warming, it was about local workers. You know who’s not parking their hybrids outside trendy coffee joints? People with real jobs. Plumbers, contractors, delivery guys, electricians. I talked to one self-described “green nut” who is a personal trainer and carries a small gym’s worth of equipment to every gig. “I need a big truck to do my job.”

A “job,” did you say? As in “the private sector”? Gee, I thought Gov. Deval Patrick had gotten rid of all those by now.

Sorry, but this is Massachusetts. Self-righteous, Prius-driving government bureaucrats in the front. Hard-working, tax-producing citizens in the back. Way back.

The green-parking issue is largely symbolic. But it is also symptomatic of the backhanded treatment blue-collar workers get from the current residents of Beacon Hill. When a carpenter is forced to park his Tahoe down the block in deference to the moral superiority of some Cambridge tree-hugger’s hybrid, it’s annoying. But when that carpenter is sitting at home because illegal immigrants are doing a job he would otherwise have, that’s absolutely outrageous.

And yet in the middle of this recession, Patrick is trying to make it easier for the illegal immigrant to work and tougher for the working American to compete.

Advocating driver’s licenses and taxpayer-subsidized college tuition for illegal immigrants would be a lousy deal for working Bay Staters any time. But it’s almost a form of political abuse for Patrick to do it at a time when our unemployment is almost 10 percent, manufacturing jobs are fleeing the state and he’s already hit blue-collar families with $1 billion in higher sales and other taxes.

Does Patrick realize who’s paying his new double-tax on beer? His pals in the pate-and-pinot crowd don’t feel it. But working guys who are out scrounging work to feed their families get it right in the wallet. Again.

Patrick knows that the issues of driver’s licenses and tuition breaks for illegals “drive everyone’s blood pressure up,” as he put it. He says we should look past those two items and at his administration’s “New Americans Agenda” as a whole.

Well I have. It involves massive government spending that would reward people for breaking the rules, coming to our state illegally and taking jobs from legal residents who desperately need them. If driver’s licenses and tuition drive up our blood pressure, the details of this government giveaway would put most Massachusetts wage earners in the ICU.

It’s easy for our liberal elites to preen and posture on the issue of illegal immigration. The only real life encounters they have with it are when they’re paying their landscapers - in cash, of course.

Regular working guys don’t have the luxury of being PC. While Massachusetts pols are debating preferred parking, these guys are out trying to make the car payment.

Your average commuter, Judy Reilly, above, is against
a plan to provide preferred parking statewide
to non-gas-guzzling cars. (DNN Staff photo)

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Deval Patrick's history if Tim Cahill, Charlie Baker tango

Article 11-16-09

An early glance at Governor's race


by Howie Carr
DNN Staff - EXCLUSIVE
Monday, Nov. 16, 2009

Can we talk, Tim Cahill and Charlie Baker?

It’s time to flip a coin. I’m serious. Heads or tails. The winner runs for governor, and the loser gets to be the other guy’s running-mate on the Republican ticket. If both of you get together right now, you can begin planning the transition in January 2011.

Not even ACORN will be able to pull it out for Deval. Or even the Globe - assuming there still is a Globe next November, that is, after all the layoffs next January.

No way Deval Patrick can be reelected in 2010. Let me rephrase that - no way he can get over 50 percent of the vote. But if two candidates are on the ballot against him, then he only needs 34 percent of the vote. Sadly, despite his disastrous term, he could still conceivably get 33 percent-plus-one. There are that many moonbats infesting this benighted Commonwealth, that overly medicated, guilt-ridden, non-working trust-fund crowd living off the monthly check from either their parents or their uncle (Sam, that is).

Which brings us to Charlie Baker, Republican, and Tim Cahill, the former Democrat who is now an independent. Both of them are running for governor. They’re making Deval’s day.

The only shot the Together-We-Con governor has is if he can split the 60 percent anti vote. Divide and conquer - the oldest story in the book.

Even then, it’s not a sure thing. Look at New Jersey last week - bustout Democat Gov. Jon Corzine, a slimy Goldman Sachs moneychanger, almost pulled it out over his GOP challenger. He came close only because of an “independent” candidate who was endorsed by the state’s largest dying broadsheet, a wretched Democrat organ called the Star-Ledger (a sort of the Globe of Newark).

The Republican was elected when the “independent” faded at the end. This is what usually happens to third-party candidates - are you listening, Tim Cahill? Nobody wants to waste his vote.

Now, you can’t blame Cahill for being offended by the fact that Charlie Baker wants him to become his number 2. After all, what is the highest office Baker has ever been elected to? Selectman, in Swampscott.

Cahill, on the other hand, has run, and won, statewide, twice. The first time, in 2002, he was one of two guys named Cahill in the Democratic primary. That’s impressive, but as Tim knows better than anyone else, he won because one of his daughters came up with a catchy slogan, “Tim for Treasurer.”

Still, he won. As the old saying goes, I’d rather be lucky than good.

But in the Dreaded Private Sector, it’s another story. Charlie Baker turned around Harvard Pilgrim. Then there’s Cahill, who in his days on the Quincy City Council owned a coffee shop named Handshakes, which was more commonly known as Fisticuffs, due to the lack of brotherly love at the joint.

So you can understand why Charlie is as adamant about Cahill stepping aside.

Meanwhile, Deval has had a hip replacement. What he also needed, as his dithering over the UMass terrorist proved, was a spine transfusion. The state can’t afford four more years of this buffoon.

Heads or tails? Your call, Tim.

Since the first day Gov. Deval Patrick (above) took
the Corner Office, he still doesn't get it.
(File Photo)

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Obama's edge not so sharp

Article 11-9-09

Post election results hint change


by Michael Graham
DNN Staff - EXCLUSIVE!
Monday, Nov. 9, 2009

How’s that “hope and change” working out for you? I can’t speak for the Democrats, but Republicans - particularly New England ones - are loving it.

After a year of defeat and dire predictions, Massachusetts conservatives have renewed hope for 2010. There’s definitely change on the way, and in a state whose legislators are about 90 percent Democrat, change can only be good for Republicans.

And who can we thank for this new conservative spirit of hopeful-changeyness? The Republican Party’s new hero: Barack Obama.

One year ago today, pundits were writing off the American right for the next election cycle, the next decade - some even said the next generation was lost to the Republicans. And now, just 10 months into the Obama presidency, what’s really been lost?

Virginia (Obama, plus five in 2008), New Jersey (Obama, plus 15) and probably the massive health reform bill (Obama, plus 28 speeches, press conferences and town halls, to no effect).

How quickly we’ve gone from “Obama - how can he lose?” to “Is there anything he can win, other than the (snicker) Nobel Peace Prize?”

Tuesday’s election proved that one of the other things Obama can’t win is another term in the corner office for Deval Patrick. Instead, it looks like New Jersey deja vu all over again.

You remember New Jersey - where an unpopular and largely inept governor was relying on Obama’s star power and his state’s solid Democratic majority to get him re-elected. That, and Gov. Jon Corzine’s ability to spend $30 million - $12 million more than his opponent.

And if all that didn’t work, Corzine had an independent candidate pulling votes away from his challenger, too.

Sound familiar? If you work in the Massachusetts governor’s office, it should. Except Deval Patrick doesn’t have Corzine’s millions, and Obama won’t be able to spend as much time in Massachusetts during the national 2010 midterms as he was able to in New Jersey.

Then again, given the results on Tuesday, that may not be such bad news.

Obama is a problem for Patrick because the president has pushed so far left so fast, he’s washing away the bad taste of the Bush years from the mouths of New Englanders. Republicans, who were anathema to Massachusetts independents only a year ago, are now viewed as just the other group of incompetent politicians.

Andy Smith at the New Hampshire Survey Center believes both of that state’s congressional seats could go Republican and the GOP could retain the seat of retiring Sen. Judd Gregg. Sen. Chris Dodd (D) is in real trouble in Connecticut.

And Patrick? Or as he’ll be known during campaign season, “Tax-raising, toll-hiking, job-killing, drapery-loving, pals-get-a-$100k pay-day” Patrick?

Nah, you’re probably right, Democrats: He’s a shoo-in.

Republican Charlie Baker is an electable candidate. His voters will be energized. There will be a tea-party-powered slew of Republican and independent challengers taking on Democratic incumbents across the state. The national GOP will have reason to send resources to New England.

And all these newfound benefits to the Baker campaign were locked in thanks to Tuesday’s election results.

The White House insists that the election had nothing to do with Barack Obama. It appears a significant portion of the electorate wants nothing to do with him, either.

Change: Republican Governor-elect Bob McDonnell
waves to the crowd at his victory party in Richmond,
Va., Tuesday. (DNN Staff photo)

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Article 11-2-09

Statistics say, Massachusetts is worst run state


by Michael Graham
DNN Staff - EXCLUSIVE!
Monday, Nov. 2, 2009

In Boston, the livin’ is never easy.

A new report from Northeastern University finds we’re one of the priciest housing markets in America. Only San Francisco has higher rents, for example.

Massachusetts has the highest energy costs in the country. Our roads are very expensive (only New Jersey spends more per state road mile) and are generally crappy - even when they’re not covered with sides of beef.

And now Bay Staters face yet another challenge, according to the liberal group ONE Massachusetts: You’re undertaxed.

In fact, ONE Massachusetts is so certain you want to pay higher taxes, they’re holding a “virtual rally” Thursday to lobby Gov. Deval Patrick to use “the obvious alternative to 9C cuts, which is, to be blunt, additional adequate and balanced revenues.”

That language comes from the ONE Massachusetts Web site, which also features attacks on Proposition 2, support for higher meals taxes and a call for Beacon Hill to impose our 6.25 percent sales tax on services. That’s everything from lawn care to pet grooming to dating services.

(Say, didn’t some ladies get in trouble charging for “dating services” on Craigslist?)

The premise of the ONE Massachusetts movement is that you don’t want the precious darlings in the government sector to undergo the same job cuts you’re facing in the legit economy. They’re shocked that Patrick might cut 2,000 state jobs - as opposed to the taxpayers, who’ll faint in astonishment if he actually does.

Massachusetts liberals believe that through a series of, shall we say “unfortunate circumstances” - indicted pols, blown budgets, no-show jobs - government is suffering bad PR. If ONE Massachusetts can just turn that around, you’ll be thrilled to pay more taxes. In the case of the sales tax on services, $7 billion more.

These nut . . . - er, “progressive advocates” - point to the same statistic: Massachusetts ranks 23rd among states in taxes paid as a percentage of our income. And thanks to a small number of extremely wealthy residents, they’re right.

For folks in the McMansions of Weston and Patrick’s swanky neighbors in the Berkshires, state taxes are chump change.

But for us chumps, it’s a different story. Our population growth has been far below the national average. We’ve lost 25,000 manufacturing jobs, and the middle class can’t handle our housing costs or our eighth highest property taxes.

Meanwhile, that statistic - taxes as a percentage of income - says nothing about what we’re getting for our money. The real number is how much does our government cost us compared to other states. How much does state and local government shake us down per person - rich or poor - to keep the lights on?

By that measure, we’re one of the worst-run states.

Massachusetts ranks eighth in per-person spending on state government. Add in local government, and we’re the fifth highest. But it’s worse than that.

Every state that ranks higher than us in per capita spending is at the bottom in population. That’s because there are certain fixed costs of operation that both a Wyoming (population 532,668) and a Massachusetts (6,497,967) must bear.

Guess which state is the only one both in the top 10 for per capita spending and the top 15 for population? You’re living it. You’re also surrounded by loonies who want to raise your taxes.

Congratulations!

The State House (above) has become
the place where loons of Democrats
continue to drive Massachusetts into
the ground. (File Photo)



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