The State Ethics commission has confirmed, as previously advised here, that Callgate was a manufactured crisis devised by the hackocracy to protect their patronage kickbacks (earmarks, in more polite society). As the AP reported:
The State Ethics Commission has decided against reprimanding Gov. Deval Patrick for a telephone call he placed to a banker on behalf of the mortgage lender where he once served on the board of directors.
OK, I’m reading between the lines a bit — even though the news report is single-spaced. I imagine the Republican Party thinks that the State Ethics Commission has done nothing more than confirm that a Democratic Governor in Massachusetts will never be investigated for anything, under any circumstances.
In this case, however, the Commission is exactly right. Patrick’s call was perfectly acceptable. He didn’t have any direct financial interest in the matter. Massachusetts jobs were arguably at stake. Personally, I hope he keeps making calls like this one. I guess he has learned, however, that the Beacon Hill barnyard is wild place at feeding time, and when one is carrying the slop buckets it is easy to slip in, well, rubbish.
Pleeeezzzzeeee let him! I’ll help dial!
Touché, PP, touché. See, I just care about what’s best for the people of Massachusetts. It’s not in my nature to want to make cheap partisan points 😉
Your right you just take cheap shots against those in your own party – as long as its not the Governor of course!
What coverage this will get at the Boston Globe?
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PS: I thought even the editors of Blue Mass Group thought “this matters.”
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(That snark was directed toward the Globe, not the editors.)
Enough with the Manichean thinking already.
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Why does this have to be either a huge crime or a valiant effort to save Massachusetts jobs? Can’t it just be a little boo-boo? I agreed with you Bob, when you wrote that “this story is partly about a rookie governor making a stupid call.” But I don’t agree that it’s “fundamentally” about how wicked and vengeful our legislators and state employees are. Cause they’re not.
Most of them are absolutely excellent. The best in the country, in MHO.
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But some of them are corrupt, in the sense that they put their personal interests ahead of the well-being of the state, disdain legal procedures, and play dirty “gotcha” politics where rumor and innuendo replace substantive discussion, among other egregious types of bad behavior.
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Those are the people whom I refer to as “the hackocracy:” they think government in Massachusetts exists to serve them first, and the people second. I suspect you and I may agree about this.
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As to the stupidity, of the call, let me clarify: in an ideal world, where the good of the people of the state of Massachusetts was first on the agenda, calls like this are all to the good. That’s my opinion. In the real world, given the circumstances and the time at which occurred, it was a stupid call to make.
Calling at the behest of a scumbag sub prime lender.
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What a bunch of F’n hippocrites. Can’t you even possibly attempt to hide your hippocracy or at least soften it. Yoy folks must be graduates of the Ted Kennedy school of being under a rock.
Citing an opinion of the State Ethics Commission (a slovenly, ineffectual lapdog of the lowest order of state agencies)to justify Gov. Patrick’s ill-advised phone call on behalf of his former and, perhaps, future corporate patron carries about as much persuasive weight as pointing to an opinion from the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel to demonstrate the no laws were broken by Justice Department officials (including AG Gonzales) in the U.S. Attorneys firing scandal.
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On need not have earned a J.D. or have practiced state government law in Massachusetts to comprehend and appreciate that Gov. Patrick should not have placed an insider telephone call to facilitate the bailout of Ameriquest, his former and possibly future corporate benefactor. Moreover, Ameriquest has exploited thousands of Massachusetts consumers by engaging in admitted deceptive and illegal sales and marketing practices. These business practices have resulted in millions of dollars in financial losses and the pending foreclosure of several hundred homes owned these victimized Massachusetts consumers. I question the economic and political trade-offs involved in potentially saving a few hundred Massachusetts Ameriquest telemarketing and loan officer jobs in exchange for permitting the ethically challenged subprime mortgage company to continue doing business in the state at cost of $17.6 million in restitution payments to Massachusetts borrowers since 2003.
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If Governor Patrick believes that his personal involvement can keep jobs from fleeing Massachusetts, there are thousands of other worthy struggling companies doing business in Massachusetts that do not make the rampant exploitation of economically vulnerable, minority, and financially unsophisticated Bay State residents the center of their business models. Moreover, most of these vulnerable companies are not in a position to offer a post-gubernatorial payoff of several thousand billable hours of legal work to whichever Boston corporate law firm former Governor Patrick decides to join in January 2011. Ameriquest “still matters” because it calls into question whether the Governor has the capacity to distinguish between his political responsibility to advocate on behalf of the public interest and his instinctive, duitful eagerness to do the bottom-line bidding of big business interests whenever a former or current corporate pal looking from Ameriquest, Coca-Cola, Texaco, etc… looking for a “simple favor” calls him on Line #1.
Citing an opinion of the State Ethics Commission (a slovenly, ineffectual lapdog of the lowest order of state agencies)to justify Gov. Patrick’s ill-advised phone call on behalf of his former and, perhaps, future corporate patron carries about as much persuasive weight as pointing to an opinion from the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel to demonstrate the no laws were broken by Justice Department officials (including AG Gonzales) in the U.S. Attorneys firing scandal.
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On need not have earned a J.D. or have practiced state government law in Massachusetts to comprehend and appreciate that Gov. Patrick should not have placed an insider telephone call to facilitate the bailout of Ameriquest, his former and possibly future corporate benefactor. Moreover, Ameriquest has exploited thousands of Massachusetts consumers by engaging in admitted deceptive and illegal sales and marketing practices. These business practices have resulted in millions of dollars in financial losses and the pending foreclosure of several hundred homes owned these victimized Massachusetts consumers. I question the economic and political trade-offs involved in potentially saving a few hundred Massachusetts Ameriquest telemarketing and loan officer jobs in exchange for permitting the ethically challenged subprime mortgage company to continue doing business in the state at cost of $17.6 million in restitution payments to Massachusetts borrowers since 2003.
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If Governor Patrick believes that his personal involvement can keep jobs from fleeing Massachusetts, there are thousands of other worthy struggling companies doing business in Massachusetts that do not make the rampant exploitation of economically vulnerable, minority, and financially unsophisticated Bay State residents the center of their business models. Moreover, most of these vulnerable companies are not in a position to offer a post-gubernatorial payoff of several thousand billable hours of legal work to whichever Boston corporate law firm former Governor Patrick decides to join in January 2011. Ameriquest “still matters” because it calls into question whether the Governor has the capacity to distinguish between his political responsibility to advocate on behalf of the public interest and his instinctive, duitful eagerness to do the bottom-line bidding of big business interests whenever a former or current corporate pal looking from Ameriquest, Coca-Cola, Texaco, etc… looking for a “simple favor” calls him on Line #1.