Six degrees of hackarama... Boston

Hacks alive and well in court system

by Howie Carr
DNN Staff - EXCLUSIVE!
Monday, Mar. 1, 2010

A quiet tragedy is unfolding in the hackerama.

Steve Anzalone Jr. seemed destined for the Probation Department, which already employs his father, his sister and two cousins, not to mention his uncle and a cousin who are on the Trial Court payroll as court officers.

After the usual nationwide search, Anzalone got his dream job in probation. But then, catastrophe: Trial Court Chief Justice Robert Mulligan noticed the six Anzalone relatives.

So young Anzalone was nixed for the probation gig he’d been promised. What does he do?

He bravely sues to claim his hack legacy.

According to Mulligan, in the words of his brief to the Supreme Judicial Court, “Enough is enough.”

Not nearly enough, argues Anzalone’s lawyer. The Anzalones currently make up a mere fraction of the Probation Department! In the context of the entire payroll, the lawyer contends in court papers, hack jobs for “six (.0008571%) or indeed, seven (.001%) individuals who are related by blood or marriage hardly constitutes evidence of nepotism.”

That landmark case will be heard in the spring by the hacks of the SJC.

Meanwhile, though, the hackling needed a job (which is very different than work) and obviously the Dreaded Private Sector was an absolute no-go.

This is where Joe DeNucci steps up. As you might recall, the good auditor was featured in these pages earlier this week, staunchly defending himself for employing his own 77-year-old cousin Buster as a “fraud examiner.”

Follow the bouncing ball.

Steve’s dad is Steve Sr., and he is “first assistant chief probation officer.” Three, count ’em, three diminutives, good for $82,078.90 a year.

In 2007, the old man suddenly begins to take an interest in Joe DeNucci’s political career - chipping in $200 in June.

In April 2008, Steve Jr. is denied his probation job.

On May 2, 2008, he is hired by Joe DeNucci. In what capacity? Why, as a fraud examiner, for a $40,056.10-a-year sinecure.

On June 20, 2008, Steve Sr. and Kathleen of the same address, presumably Jr.’s mom, each max out to the DeNucci campaign - $500 apiece.

Coincidence? Why, June is when Joe used to hold his annual Auditors Club fundraiser. By 2009, Boy Anzalone was settled in, and Dad was the only one who maxed out to the auditor, $500 last June 5.

Through a spokesman, DeNucci said he knows Anzalone only through BC football - which is almost as good an entree into probation as being named Delahunt. (Hi Kirsten, how’s that $65,039-a-year job treating you?)

Steve Jr. was asked, through DeNucci’s office, if he wanted to say anything. Hardly, he said in effect, by not calling back.

Jack Sullivan, a former Herald reporter who now works for CommonWealth magazine, has been covering the probation department’s transformation into a welfare program for shiftless hacks. I’ll have Sullivan on my radio show tomorrow night at 6:08 to discuss the probation hackerama, of which this is the merest tip of the iceberg. As always, all tips gratefully accepted.

He ain't heavy, he's my cousin: State Auditor Joe DeNucci
recently hired his 77-year-old cousin for 40 grand a year
as a Fraud Investigator while state faces job cuts.
(DNN Staff photo)

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Like president like governor

Article 2-22-10

Talk is cheap with Patrick, Obama


by Michael Graham
DNN Staff - EXCLUSIVE!
Monday, Feb. 22. 2010

It turns out they really were “just words.”

Remember the stereophonic speeches from Deval Patrick and Barack Obama during their campaigns? In 2006, Patrick complained of being “dismissed” because “all I have to offer is words, just words.” A few months later, candidate Obama said “don’t tell me words don’t matter . . . ‘I have a dream’ - just words?”

Now we’re into the second year of the Obama presidency and the final year (we hope) of the Patrick governorship, and what do we have to show for it?

Words. Empty ones, too.

The president’s very first act in office was to declare Guantanamo Bay would be closed by now. Just weeks ago he and his attorney general insisted that the 9/11 terrorists would receive civilian trials in New York City.

Just words. Khalid Sheik Mohammed will absolutely not be tried in New York, and now Eric Holder says “whatever forum” will work, including a Bush-style military tribunal.

And I’ve got $20 that says KSM will get that military trial at Gitmo.

Candidate Obama promised no lobbyists in the White House. To hold health care negotiations on C-SPAN. And remember: “If your family earns less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increased a single dime. I repeat: Not one single dime.”

That was then. Now President Obama is “agnostic” about raising taxes on families earning less than $250,000. The real question is whether he was ever a true believer when he promised he wouldn’t.

As Speaker Nancy Pelosi observed, “There are a number of things [Obama] was for on the campaign trail.”

She’s not the only liberal to notice. On the issue of clean coal, West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller said “He’s beginning to not be believable to me.”

Ya think?

National Review’s Victor Davis Hanson observed recently that “the truth is a precious commodity.”

“At some point - I think it was around mid-January - the public collectively shrugged and concluded of Obama, ‘I don’t trust anything that this guy says,’ ” Hanson wrote.

For the governor, the distance between words and reality is even greater. As a candidate, he promised property tax cuts. We got sales tax hikes. He promised not to raise gas taxes, then apologized to his fellow liberals for failing to do just that.

Patrick promised reform, but we’ve got bigger bureaucracies, more spending and payrolls still padded with six-figure salaries.

But neither of these men was elected for his policies in the first place. They were elected for their symbolism, for the political theater, for the belief that they could use words to effect change in ways other pols could not.

And that’s where they’ve both been the biggest flopperoos.

When Irian protesters were being killed,where was Obama’s soaring rhetoric in defense of freedom?

The same on a smaller scale here in Massachusetts, where Patrick has rarely used the bully pulpit against Beacon Hill’s bullies. The public wants to hear a leader voice their concerns on spending, pension abuse, elderly drivers, etc. Patrick’s silence isn’t quite deafening, but it’s glaring.

Have the voters already tuned out all the “just words”? Or is it that these two men simply don’t have anything left to say worth hearing?

Promises... Promises... Promises... Both Deval Patrick
and Barack Obama have nothing to show for based on
their campaign promises. (DNN Staff photo)

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Electronic tolls pack overcharge

Article 2-16-10

Deval's idea of electronic tolls



by Michael Graham
DNN Staff - EXCLUSIVE!
Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2010

Howdy neighbors, I’m Wheelin’ Dealin’ Deval Patrick and have I got a deal for you!

Are you tired of sittin’ in traffic on the Massachusetts Turnpike? Are you fed up with mile-long backups at toll plazas where cranky, overpaid takers won’t even say “good mornin’ ”? Well friend, those days will soon be gone forever!

And all thanks to me - your humble governor - and Deval’s De-Luxe Fly-Through Toll System!

Imagine driving every morning without those annoying stops at I-495, or Natick or Allston-Brighton. No more surly ticket takers or confusing lane changes. Just you, cruising down the open road, that good ol’ country music drifting out of the window of your pickup truck.

Speaking of pickups, have I mentioned that Sen. Scott Brown is a very good friend of mine?

Now, neighbors, I know we’ve had our little misunderstandings over the past three years. There’s the small matter of the sales tax increase. And the toll increases. And the business tax increases. And, well, there’s no point in dwellin’ on the past, folks. We need to focus on the future!

And to my detractors who claim I have abandoned my 2006 pledge to cut property taxes, I just want to say that you couldn’t be more wrong. Not only have I not forgotten my pledge, but I plan to make the exact same promise during the campaign of 2010!

But all of that is water under the bridge - or should I say tickets through the tollbooth - now that I’m leadin’ the charge to get rid of toll booths and toll collectors once and for all. You may have read about this fancy new open-tolling system in the Herald Monday. We just put up a few fancy gizmos that can read your Fast Lane doohickey at highway speeds or scan your license plate on the fly, and we can keep you moving. And keep your money movin’ too, right to Beacon Hill!

It’s fast, it’s easy and you can put the darn things anywhere!

What do my opponents do? They look for ways to attack me - your hard-workin’ servant of the people. They say that because my De-Luxe Fly-Over tolls can go anywhere, I’m gonna stick ’em on every highway, roadway and walkway in the commonwealth.

Who, me?

They say that since it doesn’t mean toll booths or backups, my Beacon Hill colleagues and I won’t be able to resist the temptation of collectin’ millions in new tolls on I-93, I-95, etc., etc.

Then there was that story on WBZ-TV about my former transportation chief, Jim Aloisi, looking at a new-fangled mileage tax because “we can raise a lot of money this way.” Some of you are nervous because ol’ Jim has been studying a program in Oregon where they put chips on your car and charge you by the mile. According to WBZ, we could be testing that idea here in Massachusetts a year from now.

Which is why I, Deval Patrick, friend of the workin’ man, want to assure you that I have no intention of doing any of these things. Why the thought had never occurred to me! Whether it’s fly-through tolls or computer chips on your cars, I am more than happy to leave hundreds of millions of easily-collectible dollars in the driving public’s pockets for years to come!

You have my word. And if you can’t trust your ol’ pal Deval, who can you trust?

UPGRADE: Gov. Deval Patrick is exploring a plan
to install electronic toll booths on the Mass. Turnpike,
which would save millions in toll taker salaries.

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Hey Patrick Kennedy, the joke is really on you

Article 2-8-10

Patrick Kennedy calls Scott Brown's win a joke


by Howie Carr
DNN Staff - EXCLUSIVE!
Monday, Feb. 8, 2009

Patrick “Patches” Kennedy is calling somebody else a “joke”?

Does the phrase pot calling the kettle black come to mind? Or how about what the late Edward McCormack said to Patches’ dad, Edward Moore Kennedy, in his first campaign for the U.S. Senate back in 1962: “If your name were Edward Moore, your candidacy would be a joke.”

Patches, if your name were - no, I take that back. Patches, you are a joke, period. You are the runt of the litter of the runt of the litter. And the applejack didn’t fall far from the tree.

Scott Brown should have waited longer to get sworn into office? Hey Patches, your dad got sworn in the day after he was handed the Senate seat.

When Patches got into politics, the family sent down handlers to, let’s be blunt, take care of him. One of them used to work for George Keverian at the State House, another was in the soft-drink business in western Mass. They’re both dead.

Running for re-election? He has a 62 percent unfavorable rating statewide in Rhode Island. Those are Deval Patrick-type numbers. But that’s the least of Patches’ problems. The wheels have come off. Patches doesn’t need a campaign manager, he needs a guardian. Just ask Marsha Coakley.

Forget all that stuff that happened a few years back - the crash in the CVS parking lot, almost running over some Capitol cops in D.C. on his way, allegedly, to a 3 a.m. vote.

This goes a lot further.

During the famous “traditional Easter weekend” in Palm Beach in 1991, Patches and Teddy ducked out of St. Edwards and walked down to Chuck & Harold’s on Royal Poinciana Way.

It was 11:45 a.m. I saw the bar tab. In a half-hour, Teddy quaffed three Bloody Marys and Patches had three Long Island iced teas. This is not long after he’d gotten out of a detox center for his cocaine addiction, and he’s slopping down five-shot drinks, before noon. He’s never been all there.

And to go after a guy like Scott Brown, who came up the hard way . . . well, that’s Patches for you. OK, his father’s gone and he’s sad. Stipulated. But where does he come up with these absurd comments, saying that seven out of 10 of Brown’s votes were from union families?

Patches, do you realize that at least one or two of the Governor’s councilors got calls from pinky-ring thugs this week asking them to take a powder before the certification, so the hacks could claim there wasn’t a quorum and hold up Brown’s swearing-in?

Enjoy these last months in public life, Patches. The joke’s on you.

In a recent photo, Patrick Kennedy is shown stunned,

as Scott Brown celebrates victory with his wife, Gail.

(DNN Staff photo)

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