Take a look at the state legislature. I dare say that the over-all quality of those running for and getting elected to the house and senate has seriously diminished in the past 20 years. Actually 30 but since the internet took hold it’s gotten much worse.
The gotch-ya atmosphere dominating the media since Watergate has morphed into most “journalists” trying to catch a politician literally and figuratively picking his nose in public. This of course is what gives media entrepreneurs like John Henry, Rupert Murdoch, Pat Purcell, and Dave Portnoy a return on their investments.
So when state reps and state senators are hauled in front of federal grand juries for writing letters of recommendations for jobs and then named as unindicted co-conspirators for writing said letters while the Globe and local media pundits applaud and use it to feather their own caps is there any wonder why we are getting more and more losers, transplanted wealthy wasps who believe their shit don’t stink, youngsters fresh out of college, and more losers running for these jobs.
Get all that?
And of course the local media big shots strutting around this small pond like to tell us how corrupt we are. Are you fucking kidding me? Oh wait. All those speakers.
Sal DiMasi took money. Corrupt. (even though he doesn’t believe it)
Tom Finneran indictment was a joke but Finneran knew he was getting railroaded and did the right thing and plead. He never received money.
His perjury was constructed out of testimony. He was targeted and tracked down by a US Attorneys Office that worked for George W. Bush and was told to indict Democratic politicians. I’m sure you all remember the mass resignations of U.S. Attorneys because of this. Unfortunately the local media didn’t give Finneran a break when this was reported. It contradicted the narrative they had already invested in.
Charley Flaherty plead to a tax cheating indictment because he stayed at someone’s house on the Cape for a week or two without paying rent. The IRS considered that income and said he was a criminal because he didn’t pay taxes on it. Yes the owner was a lobbyist but there were no laws against it.
Anyway Flaherty plead but another rep who had similar charges fought it and the court said as a matter of law it was not a crime.
Wow. We make old time Chicago and Tammany Hall look like the Wellesley Women’s League.
The frauds at the Globe perpetuate this shit and that’s why it is almost impossible to find quality people to take out papers and then do what needs to be done to win.
Can you believe the incoming governor needed to (or felt he needed to) make the obtuse, unimaginative, wealthy, right wing, semi-tea party, just wants to be famous, Karyn Polito his Lt. Governor because she solved problems with a core constituency he needed to get elected.
The gotch-ya mindset has moved inside the two institutions especially the House. The minority leader seems to mimic Howie Carr and point fingers at the entire party when one member has a problem. As if the Speaker and other Dems hand pick their fellow members.
It’s an easy rhetorical device used to fool idiots and it’s becoming the norm. Take a large group of people, like state legislators, and then let statistics and demographics take hold. Wait for the bad apples to appear or ones who are easy targets and use selective and misleading facts so it appears to the public as acceptable behavior and the norm for most the members.
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Run Liz Run
I don’t know all the details and may not agree with all of it, but I’m sympathetic to the overall theme of his rant about the criminalization of politics.
DiMasi was corrupt, and Finneran denied racial minorities fair representation. Both are pieces of shit that stain the name Democrat-especially the homophobic, Dixiecratic wing of the party based around the likes of Finneran and Steve Linehan and formerly folks like Billy Bulger, Jim Kelly, and the Dapper. Folks that were voting against the MLK holiday right through the 90s.
Those chums, and the asshole on the street who called my friends visiting here from Chicago the n word yesterday are the reason we don’t get the Olympics. Mark my words over whatever purple shamrock memories Ernie is indulging in.
That said-the Globe is run by a bunch of “innovation economy” boosting corporate pieces of shit that love casinos and charters and actually hate transparency and open government when it comes to their petty indulgences like the games. Far easier to rake Stan over his personal life than actually examine the shitty casino ATM rider he was trying to stealthily advance through The Senate. We need better people and better democrats and the media rewards access, insiderism, and proximity to power and business over its role as a real watchdog for shenanigans.
I never did understand why Finneran was asked under oath about redistricting. To me that is the definition of a political question and I give about as many hoots about that instance of perjury as I do about Bill Clinton’s regarding his dalliances with Monica Lewinsky.
the Supreme Court squarely rejected the notion that redistricting is pure politics that is beyond the reach of the judicial process in the 1960s. It’s not a “political question,” at least in the technical sense of that term.
The judicial remedy to bad districting is to order the legislature to try again, and if that doesn’t work empower the court to draw the map themselves.
but perjury is. That is why he was prosecuted.
out of a lengthy transcript. Did Finneran know the details of 162 districts. Know. Did he know of some. Yes. He never denied this.
was him saying he did not know specific details of districts.
n/t
…when the underlying act isn’t criminal (and I get the sense it’s a fishing expedition) I have a hard time getting worked up about the perjury per se.
to protect his friend, Rep Kevin Fitgerald, by denying fair representation to racial and ethnic minorities in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act. He could not countenance being asked a question by a federal prosecutor about his role in redistricting so he lied under oath. That is perjury, plain and simple. There is very little that matches the perfidy of a perjury conviction by a politician willing to deny basic civil rights to racial and ethnic minorities.
BTW, Kevin Fitz was a good guy whereas Finneran is an arrogant SOB (and yes, smart as they come also) who was used to getting his way with the many cowards in the House. That did not sit well with the federal prosecutors or judge. He paid the price for perjury. Good riddance. Now he is a lobbyist and will be welcomed back as a hero when the House convenes next week.
I do agree that Flaherty was the victim of a witch hunt and DiMasi was just dirty. There are other areas where DiMasi was not indicted but easily could have been for violating the state’s conflict of interest laws, specifically his messing with state law to protect his wife’s family liquor business to the detriment of competition that would benefit consumers. Coincidentally, DiMasi’s corruption on that issue was partly undone this month with a change in law allowing Massachusetts residents to receive out-of-state wine shipments, in large part due to the efforts of Drew Bledsoe and his Washington state vineyard and winery.
“Counselor, I am the Speaker – of course I played a key role,” should have worked. Of course, I think it’s high time that the portions of the Voting Rights Act requiring the consideration of race in districting be reconsidered anyway. A person is a person and we haven’t had an operative 3/5 clause for a century and a half.
that Finneran should have just owned his role in redistricting. Then he would have had no problem. But he is incapable of admitting his dishonesty, generally and in this case in particular. So lying under oath got him bounced, something members of the House would not do to him when he persistently lied to them.
DiMasi took money. It was a thoroughly stupid thing to do and he shouldn’t have done it. And he deserves to be punished (though his sentence and his treatment inside the prison system have always struck me as excessively harsh). But he also achieved a lot of good things in the state. We might well have neither our health care law nor marriage equality, among other things, had someone else been Speaker during his time. So POS seems a little strong to me.
But we also can’t complain when DeLeo is eventually charged for similar stuff or when a Republican wins the occasional election since this is a reputation our party leaders have made that stains the entire party. And something rank and file members of the legislature and grassroots activists have to call out. Johnson passing the Civil Rights Act doesn’t change the fact that he rigged elections and got us into a reckless war on a false pretense. The fight for marriage equality was a grassroots fight, one that has overcome electoral and legislative setbacks in other places. It’s an idea whose time has come, I’ll retract that disparagement of DiMasi but let us also not argue those two good actions obscure or absolve him of his misdeeds either. Blago got universal health care for kids-he also is a corrupt dirtbag.
DiMasi is a tragic figure, not a POS. Shakespeare could have written a play about him.
holding office is that there is very little you can do given the lack of money to do it with. It’s very hard to do anything positive with no money. In my small town, we’ve cut the fat. Now we’re looking at the amputation of fingers and toes, if not limbs. Cities like Springfield and Holyoke don’t have enough money to address their needs, never mind what they might want.
This isn’t hugely different from what legislators have to do. DCF not doing its job? Try to shift some money its way, not enough money, but enough to show you care. Roads and bridges in terrible shape? Let’s put not enough money toward them. Successful businesses can’t run on a decreasing amount of revenue, but government is expected to.
The media has always wielded power it doesn’t deserve, but now they’re fighting for their existence while they’re losing their hegemony. Ernie’s yearning for a time when the media and government could make gentlemen’s agreements about issues. Like not covering JFK’s promiscuity. Those gentlemen don’t exist anymore.
I’m just waiting for somebody to reply that we can’t just throw money at problems like broken bridges and homeless families sleeping in places ” unfit for human habitation”.
Your town is a mere subdivision of the Commonwealth, impoverished by rules and other decisions set by the state.
The Legislature can change those rules and make different decisions and fund things.
A whole other discussion, maybe: How the Lege is still subject to public opinion (which is good!) that has been informed by watching electeds repeatedly betray the public trust (not so much good).
Still within the control of state officials though.
Don’t like it when the shoe’s on the other foot, eh?
My favorite debate statement of all time is when former Transportation Comm chair Eric Turkington told the Falmouth LWV in his debate that they should see to it that a public school Spanish teacher and local office holder from Martha’s Vineyard be defeated in the House race in order to “send a message to George Bush!”
Yah, like the prospect of a zillion term Dem in Massachusetts being re-elected kept him awake nights.
The strategy of tying the NATIONAL GOP to local races has been a staple for more than 20 years, and had us down to a caucus of 16 at one point. Until the corruption got worse and worse, and GOP’s began to be elected again.
To me, the Democratic party is the party that steals quarters out of the photocopy machine at night. Petty, unrelenting greedheads, every one.
(BTW – agree about Finneran)
The choice between the quarter stealers and the billionaires was always a false one, and it remains so today. We can have a Democratic Party free from the taint of unethical behavior and corporate servitude. We just gotta build it from the ground up, something no charismatic candidate be they named Deval, Barack, or Liz can do on their own.
Dick Cheney. The worst corruption is legal.
I don’t mind hanging the guys who do wrong. I thought it was pretty clear what DiMasi was doing and (I don’t know the law on this) that it was wrong. Sorry for almost anyone who has to die in prison, but not sorry he went to prison.
doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have compassion for that person.
For example, do we need to purposefully go out of our way to send someone — anyone — in prison far away from their homes, when other, closer locations are available?
Should prisoners be denied good health care, particularly after being diagnosed with cancer?
Prisoners should face punishment for their crimes, of course. But we shouldn’t punish innocent family members, making it impossible to visit their loved ones. And we definitely shouldn’t use access to health care as a tool to attempt to extract more information out of someone.
That goes for all prisoners, well known or otherwise.
we should do everything we can to guard against it, but we also need to learn to confront corruption in a way that’s different than a freakout, because the collateral damage of a rushed “reform” can be far worse than the actual problem. (Case in point: legislating terribly flawed photo IDs for EBT cards because Suzanne Bump didn’t realize the ‘corruption’ with the program was terrible software).